Twelve public commitments — and what each one explicitly doesn't do

The discouragement architecture post a few days ago framed the principle: ConKarma's stick is the absence of a stick. Today's twelve commitments are what that principle looks like applied to specific places people live their lives — what they eat, how they move, who they call in a crisis, what they don't want to talk about, what they're recovering from, how they communicate, who they are, where their family came from, when they sleep, who's in the household, how they co-parent across two homes, and the pets they share their lives with.

Each one is a /help article plus a section on /trust plus a Build-in-Public entry. Each one ships with an explicit list of what the feature deliberately is not. That second list is usually the more important one.

What we filter, what we adapt

Allergens (ADR-100). The cell-level allergen filter runs across food, contact, and dietary patterns, with a three-level severity ladder you pick when you declare. It is not a medical device. It does not detect allergens from photos, share data with insurers, or maintain a drug-allergy schema. /help/allergies-and-dietary-restrictions.

Accessibility (ADR-101). Workshop, Themed Nights, Joysticks, Hearths, Wishbook, Family Coach — they all adapt to the accessibility needs the cell declared, without filing accommodation requests on your behalf. Not a medical device, not a clinical assessment tool, no photo/video auto-detection. /help/accessibility-and-mobility.

Communication style (ADR-105). A two-layer declaration — preferences first, optional neurotype second — shifts how prompts and coach output land. Plain-language adaptation, never deficit framing, never IEP auto-fill, never pity. /help/communication-style.

Heritage language (ADR-107). Distinct from your interface locale; multi-select; powers cross-generational prompts and Lingua translator qualification. Never inferred from name, location, IP, or behavior. /help/heritage-language.

Household composition (ADR-109). Multi-select declaration shifts suggestion baselines without labeling your family. Single-parent cells stop seeing "date-night-with-the-other-parent" cards; multi-generational cells see grandparent-anchored prompts. No ad targeting on this (we don't target ads anyway), no platform-initiated labeling. /help/household-composition.

What we route, what we respect

Crisis routing (ADR-102). Per-context emergency contacts with a who-to-reach-first order and a fallback chain, sitter-brief-scoped, COPPA-safe for kid accounts. We route notifications based on what you set up. We do not dispatch emergency services. In a life-threatening emergency, call your country's emergency number; per-region helpline numbers are at /help/emergency-checkin. /help/emergency-contacts-and-crisis-routing.

Topic avoidance (ADR-103). When you flag a topic to avoid, we never invert it into more of the topic. Two severity levels; one-tap temporary-allow with auto-resume after seven days; COPPA anti-stigma framing for kid accounts. /help/topic-avoidance.

Recovery (ADR-104). Declaring a substance-recovery posture filters Ember alcohol-pairings, celebration-suggestion decks, and daily-question themes. The /help/emergency-checkin catalog is extended with SAMHSA, SMART Recovery, Nar-Anon, and GamblersAnon — discoverable, never pushed. We are not a treatment platform, we don't track days-sober, and we don't score retention against recovery posture. /help/substance-recovery.

Quiet hours (ADR-108). Daily questions, Pulse re-engagement, push notifications, cell-timeline auto-fanfare — all respect declared quiet hours. Streaks pause and resume without penalty. Safety-critical overrides carry an explicit "this was sent during your quiet hours because…" header and the reason is logged for a week so you can audit it. /help/quiet-hours-and-sleep.

What we honor

Pronouns and identity (ADR-106). Pronouns asked early; gender identity is a separate, opt-in layer; decline-to-state is real and equal on both. Kid voice is always honored — a parent cannot override declared pronouns through admin tools. Trans-protective historical handling: previous-name and previous-pronoun attribution is not republished on cell-mate surfaces. /help/pronouns-and-identity.

Co-parenting (ADR-110). Each parent runs their own cell; the kids belong to both. Coordination items only cross cells when both parents independently opt in to the topic. The family-law disclaimer is prominent on every related surface: ConKarma is not court-admissible, does not adjudicate custody, does not calculate parenting time, does not maintain a child-support ledger or a legal-document repository. In a safety emergency, call your country's emergency number or a DV hotline. /help/co-parenting.

Pets (ADR-111). Vaccination reminders, vet contact, behavior alerts, care preferences, the sitter-brief pet section, and a Family Captain rotation for feeding and walks. The Lookouts public Information Catalog at /features/lookouts carries the pet-loss-grief guide for when a pet dies. We are not a vet platform. In a pet emergency, call your vet. /help/pets.

What this week didn't do

Worth naming, as always. None of the twelve commitments came with a launch campaign — they went onto /trust and /build-in-public quietly, where commitments belong. No "twelve new features!" push, no countdown, no "look how much we shipped" social card. Most of the engineering work behind these was tagging an existing surface to respect a declared preference; the visible commitment is what was previously implicit.

If you want the underlying register, /promises is the canonical list (now sixteen sections including the discouragement-architecture preamble that frames all of them); the engineering-decision summaries are on /build-in-public; the rupture-and-transition architecture from earlier in the week lives on /trust alongside today's twelve additions.

Quiet day of shipping. Loud commitments.

— Stas