An allowance still belongs to a room, and one allowance can pay for several decisions. The decision names the one it is paid from, right under the evidence card. There are two ways in: set it up in Money and link it here, or add it from the decision with the room already filled in. Both end in the same allowance, listed in Money.
6a is linked, 6b is not linked yet, 6c picks from the kitchen's allowances, and 6d adds a new one. 6e is the answer "none", and 6f is what linking opens when the house has no allowances yet. On the desk, 6g places the block and 6h shows the side sheet. The Dave note, the room photo and the Source fact are left out of these frames so the allowance sits above the fold.
Read-only here. The row names the allowance, its source and what else it pays for, and opens it in Money. Changing the amount happens there, so the figure has one home. The overflow on the row relinks or unlinks through 6c.
Same slot, same place. One row opens 6c. It says what linking does rather than that something is missing, because plenty of decisions have no allowance and that is fine.
A single answer, so the action is pinned and names its scope. The kitchen's allowances come first, then any across the house. The last row routes to 6d instead of being picked. Opened on a linked decision, the current one is ticked and "Not paid from an allowance" unlinks it.
The Money sheet with the room already set to the decision's room, so it asks two things instead of three. The room can still be changed. Adding links it in the same tap, and the allowance shows up in Money like any other.
The same block as 6a, at the foot of the evidence column, under the card it follows on the phone. The answer column stays options and Settle only, so the money never sits between an option and the button that records it. The unlinked, "none" and empty cases (6b, 6e, 6f) swap the row the same way.
The 6c sheet from the right edge at 480px. Behind it, the decision is capped to the 340px strip the sheet leaves, and the evidence column moves up into it, so the row that was pressed stays in view beside the list it opened. 6d and 6f open in the same position.
Every decision is in one of three states: standard options, Dave's selections, or locked, picked or not yet. A state changes two things: where the options come from, and who the decision waits on. The evidence card already names both, as Source and Waiting on, so the state is written there rather than as a row of its own.
5a and 5b are the same screen without and with Dave on HouseChalk: the facts read the same, and only the line and ghost under the card change. 5d lists what each state keeps and removes. How Dave sets states, and what Philip sees when Dave joins, leaves or changes a list, is in Builder Decision States.
The state is written in the evidence card as Source and Waiting on, the two things it changes. With no builder on HouseChalk, Philip is the only one who can record it, so one line under the card says why and a hugged ghost opens 5h. The same line and ghost sit under the card in every state, reading "Change what Dave told you" once something is recorded.
Same screen once Dave is connected. The facts now say Dave chose the state, and Philip cannot change it, so the line says who can and the ghost asks him. No state is changed from the homeowner side while a builder is connected. 5e–5g are drawn in this mode.
One decision screen, four states. Every part of J and N is listed once, top to bottom in screen order. A part marked removed is not drawn, rather than drawn disabled. The same table holds on the phone and on the desk.
Dave's list replaces HouseChalk's outright, with whatever detail he gave. There is no compare: HouseChalk has no data on his products to line up. In its place, Help me decide opens a conversation that starts from what Philip has already told us (5n). What already answered part of it, Set the specs and Reported specifications are not drawn.
Drawn with Dave on HouseChalk; with no builder, the sources and the hand-off change as in 5p. A chat: the thread scrolls, and the composer is pinned under it with nothing below. Philip's turns are his own bubbles. HouseChalk's turns are not bubbles, because a bubble in this system is a person quoted verbatim and the product never speaks in quotation marks. Each is a labelled turn of plain prose that can carry rich parts inside it: a card measuring Dave's three against what Philip said, the sources it used as an as-of line, and a hand-off card when a question is Dave's. It opens with the first turn already written. It advises and never settles, and the line at the top of the thread says so.
Asking changes nothing in your house record. You settle on the decision.
Here is how Dave's three sit against what you told us about the kitchen.
For two cooks, a second sink mostly helps when one of you preps while the other cleans up. If that is not how your evenings go, the aisle is the bigger daily difference.
What the sink line costs under the slab, and when Dave needs to know, are his to answer.
Nothing to choose, so no answer set, no compare and no Settle. The facts say whose call it is and when it is needed, and the one thing to do is ask. What it will set is listed, because it is the reason Philip is looking.
Dave's pick is the first fact, so the answer is the first thing read after the title. The rest of the screen is what it sets. Nothing on it is a control on this decision.
Opened from "Record what Dave told you" in 5a. Three answers in Philip's words about what he was told, never as settings. The pinned action names what saving does. Picking "He is picking it" opens one optional line: left empty, the decision reads as 5f; filled in, as 5g. Picking his selections goes on to 5i. Try the three answers.
Type in the last row and press Return to add one; it lands at the end, in Dave's order. Each takes an optional detail line, and remove is on the right. Every part and key is specified in 5o. The pinned action counts what it will use. Remove all three to see the empty state: saving with none keeps HouseChalk's options.
One rule shared with 2b: a list that changes never quietly changes an answer. In 2b the answer still stands, so nothing is asked. Here Dave asked for a new pick, so the Say names what happened and what stays, nothing is pre-selected, and Settle appears only once something is picked.
What still works comes first. The state reads from this phone's copy, in the same facts. Settling and "Record what Dave told you" wait for a connection, so neither is drawn, and the options are a read-only run rather than blocks to press and be refused.
Two parts the system does not have yet, drawn here at the sheet's content width of 432px. Both sit in one Card inside the 5i sheet: the selections Philip has added, in the order he typed them, then QuickAddRow last. Each added selection is an EntryRow. Its name becomes the option's name on the decision, and its detail line becomes the option's annotation (5e). The Builder file's desk sheet (H) uses the same two parts.
A plus glyph in Pigment, then a borderless field reading "Add a selection". No button, because there is nothing to add. At least 60px tall, so the field is a 44px target with room.
The row takes a 2px Pigment focus ring around the field. Once there is text, Add appears on the right as the one inline text action. It is a LinkAction, not a button, because Return does the same thing and most people will press Return.
The name in 16px semibold, and the optional detail line under it reading "Add a detail" in muted ink. Remove is a 44px icon button on the right, aligned to the top of the name so it stays put when the text wraps. Rows are separated by the 9% rule, never a border.
The detail is one free-text line that wraps, for anything Dave said about it: a size, a material, a lead time. It is optional and never validated. It shows on the decision exactly as typed.
Name and detail are both editable in place, and each takes the same focus ring as the quick-add field when it has focus. There is no edit mode and no save per row.
Names are never truncated. They wrap, the row grows, and the detail and remove button keep their positions.
Added selections first, in the order typed, then the quick-add row last, so the list reads in Dave's order and a new one lands where the reader is looking.
The 5h sheet from the right edge at 480px, sharing its state with the phone frame. Behind it, the decision is capped to the 340px strip the sheet leaves visible, so the evidence card and the ghost Philip pressed are still in view.
N in the Dave's selections state. The evidence column carries the state in its facts, the answer column holds only his list, and the full-width After you settle run is not drawn.
5n at width. Still a screen with the rail beside it, not a side sheet, for the same reason: a conversation has no end and keeps its composer. The thread is capped at 640px so turns stay a readable measure, and the composer is pinned to the foot of that column, not the window. Drawn with no builder connected: the sources say Philip recorded the list himself (5i), and a question for Dave goes on his own list of things to ask rather than to Dave.
Asking changes nothing in your house record. You settle on the decision.
Here is how Dave's three sit against what you told us about the kitchen.
For two cooks, a second sink mostly helps when one of you preps while the other cleans up. If that is not how your evenings go, the aisle is the bigger daily difference.
What the sink line costs under the slab, and when Dave needs to know, are his to answer.
A count with nothing behind it makes the reader do the work the product exists to do — and the system already says counts are for scanning, not for hiding a list. One answer on the board so far. 4b keeps the count and puts the list behind a sheet, which is the right shape past three — the reader is mid-decision and cannot afford to lose their place, so the decision stays behind the panel and the panel carries no way to answer anything. 4c is the same sheet on the desk, side-anchored from the right. It is read-only either way: no chevron, no marker, no action. A third move is worth doing either way — write what each option releases into the option's own annotation, which several already do.
The count stays where it is and a hugged ghost button sits under the card, the system's shape for a secondary way forward. It rises as a sheet, so the decision is still behind it: each dependent keeps its own card, its facts keep their labels, and the panel has no action in it at all. Close is the only way out, which is what makes it reading rather than a detour.
Same component, same content: past the tablet rung the panel comes in from the right at 480px instead of rising from the bottom. The decision behind is capped to the 340px strip the sheet leaves visible, so the evidence card and the button Philip pressed are still in view. Content left at the pane's full width would run under the scrim.
The system already answers this, and the test is what the reader can afford to lose. Set the specs continues the decision they are looking at, so it is a sheet: side-anchored at 480px on the canvas, scrim behind, the decision still there to come back to. Compare and Reported specifications are not continuations — one is a wide table the 480px panel would break, the other is a record you arrive at and cite — so both are screens. Below: the sheet (3a), then compare (3c) and the report (3d) as screens, each with its way back to the decision above the title — the desk bar carries no navigation, so the return sits in the reading column where the reader is looking.
The three questions the settled option leaves unsaid, answered without leaving the decision that raised them. The sheet carries no navigation and the action is pinned to its foot, so the sheet closes on one press and the reader lands back where they were. The decision behind is capped to the 340px strip the sheet leaves visible.
A screen, not a sheet. The width is the whole point of comparing on a desk: five lines against two candidates, each cell a full phrase rather than a wrapped fragment, and the one line that does not differ stays muted so the eye goes to the four that do. The pick sits under the table as a row run, so the comparison and the answer are one reading.
A record you arrive at and cite, so it is a screen and not an overlay. The facts keep their labels on the left, the provenance sits with them, and the one line that does not match what you set is a callout with the two things you can do about it. Nothing here is a control on the decision.
The decision before anybody chooses, and the part J does not draw: the answers from the kitchen conversation are on the decision, because a decision that cannot show its own inputs asks the homeowner to remember them. Two of the three were measured by hand, so neither appears without its noun and its date — a figure with no provenance is the thing this product exists to replace. Nothing here is a specification yet: an island you have not chosen has no dimensions to give.
The depths this question offers were re-authored after this house answered. Three refusals hold the frame: nothing is ticked, because pre-selecting the nearest offer is the product changing somebody's answer and calling it a confirmation; there is no primary, because there is nothing to save; and nothing is red, because the list changed and the island did not. The reader is here only because they opened the field — an answer that is still the answer is not an outstanding item, and it carries no mark anywhere else.
Same content, two columns: the evidence on the left, the answer on the right, both starting on a shared 72px header row as on the landing. The zone does not come with it — a zone is a full-width region of a screen, and inside a column it would bleed into the gap, so on the desk the answer set is a named run of option blocks on the ground. The action stays directly under the options, and what follows a settled answer runs full width below. How each state is written on this screen, and what each state removes, is in 5a, 5b and 5d.
Phase, clock and eyebrow are gone, so the record's name is the first thing on the screen — at the 27px screen-title step with the question under it at 16px, which is what the head was missing. The two secondary ways forward are buttons now: compare is an outline button at the foot of the answer set, not ready is a ghost under the action. Drawn in the standard options state; the other states are in 5d.
What the settled option did not say. Three questions, each a card with its answers as a row run — inside a card the marker carries the selection, so these do not read as a second set of blue blocks competing with the one on the decision screen. One action records all three.
A record, not a control: what you were told, who told you and when. Every fact keeps its own label instead of being dot-joined into a caption, the quote is Dave's words verbatim, and the only action is the one that changes something — asking about a line that does not match what you set.
What the compare button opens. Two candidates side by side, the lines that differ in plain ink and the line that does not in muted, then the pick as a row run inside the same card.
Six things, each with the same root: the screen asks one question four times instead of once.