Setup guide

From zero to chore chart in ten steps.

Walk through each step in order the first time you set up Chore Chart. After that, this page is a reference — jump straight to whatever you need. Most families finish steps 1–7 in about fifteen minutes.

Create a familyParent login

Step 1

Create your parent account

Chore Chart starts with one parent signing up. You'll verify your email, then land on a quick family-name setup.

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The signup screen with email and password fields and a Create account button.

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The signup screen at /signup.
  1. From the home page, tap Create a family (or Parent login if you already have an account).
  2. Enter your email and a password. Supabase sends a verification email — confirm it before continuing.
  3. You can also sign in with Google if your family prefers — the button is right under the form.

Step 2

Name your family

The first time you sign in, you'll be asked what to call your family. This name appears in headers and on the shared device board. You can change it later in Settings.

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The 'What should we call your family?' setup form with a single name field.

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The /setup screen — a single field, one button.
  1. Pick a name your kids will recognize — “The Joneses”, “Team Rivera”, anything that fits.
  2. Save and you'll land on the parent dashboard at /dashboard.

Step 3

Set your points & approval defaults

Before you build your chore library, decide two things: how many points equal one dollar (for cash-outs) and whether chores require parent approval by default.

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The Settings page showing family name, points-per-dollar, and an auto-approve toggle.

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Settings → Family. Points-per-dollar drives cash-out math.
  1. Open Settings from the parent nav.
  2. Points per dollar — a common starting point is 100 points = $1. You can change this any time and it only affects future cash-outs.
  3. Auto-approve by default — when on, chores credit points immediately on completion. When off, every chore goes to the approval queue first. (Each chore can override this.)
  4. While you're here, set your theme (light / dark / system) and enable browser push notifications if you want approval pings.

Step 4

Invite a co-parent

Both parents get the same parent privileges: edit the family, approve chores, manage rewards. Invites go through a one-time-use link.

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The Invite section on Settings showing a generated invite link with copy and rotate buttons.

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Settings → Invite a co-parent. Treat this link as a password.
  1. In Settings, find the Invite a co-parent section.
  2. Tap Generate link, then copy it and send it to your partner via whatever messenger you both use.
  3. They visit the link, set up their own account, and they're dropped into your family with parent rights.
  4. Rotate the code if you ever need to revoke an outstanding invite.

Step 5

Add your kids

Each kid gets a profile with a color, an emoji avatar, a 4-digit PIN, and a weekly target. Kids don't sign in with email — they pick their face on the family device and tap their PIN.

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The Add Kid form with name, color swatches, emoji picker, PIN field, and weekly target.

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Family → Add kid. PINs are stored hashed; you'll only see them at creation.
  1. Go to Family in the parent nav and tap Add kid.
  2. Name, color, and emoji are how the kid recognizes themselves on the family device — let them pick.
  3. PIN— 4 digits the kid will tap to unlock their view. After 5 wrong tries the PIN locks for a cool-down period, so pick something they'll actually remember.
  4. Weekly target — how many chores per week before they hit their streak goal. Start conservative; you can raise it.
  5. Repeat for each kid. They show up on the Family page as cards.

Step 6

Build your chore library

Chores are templates that generate a daily instance based on their recurrence. Each chore has a title, points, recurrence, time-of-day, and an assignee.

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The New Chore form with title, icon, points, recurrence (daily/weekdays/weekly/custom), time-of-day, and assigned-to fields.

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Chores → New. Time-of-day controls when the chore unlocks on the board.
  1. Go to Chores and tap New chore. There are also quick-add templates if you want to seed common chores at once.
  2. Recurrence — Daily, Weekdays only, Weekly on specific days, or Custom days. The cron generates an instance for the next day at midnight Eastern.
  3. Time-of-day — Anytime, Morning (unlocks at 5 AM), Evening (unlocks at 3 PM), or Both. Locked slots show dimmed with the unlock time on the kid view and family board.
  4. Assigned to— Pick a specific kid, or “Everyone” to fan it out to one row per kid.
  5. Requires approval— Override the family default per-chore. Use this for things like “clean room” where you want eyes on it before points land.

Step 7

Set up rewards

Rewards are what kids spend points on. They can be open to everyone or assigned to one kid (e.g. a birthday-specific reward). Stock can be unlimited or capped.

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The Rewards page showing reward cards with cost in points, stock, and an Add reward button.

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Rewards. Cards show points cost, current stock, and assignment.
  1. Open Rewards and tap New reward.
  2. Cost is in points. If you set points-per-dollar to 100, then a 500-point reward is worth $5 of effort.
  3. Stock— leave blank for unlimited; set a number for things like “movie night pick” that should only happen so often.
  4. Assigned to— leave blank for “any kid”, or pick a specific kid to make it private to them.
  5. When a kid redeems, the request lands back on this page so you can mark it fulfilled.

Step 8

Set up the family device board

The board is a shared, kiosk-style screen for a tablet on the fridge or counter. It shows everyone's chores grouped by time-of-day and lets kids tap to complete. No login required — the family ID in the URL is the shared secret.

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The family board showing chore cards grouped by Morning, Anytime, and Evening, with a refresh and exit control in the header.

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The /board screen at /board?family=<your-family-id>.
  1. From any device signed in as a parent, go to /switch and tap Open family board. That gives you a URL with your family ID.
  2. Open that URL on the tablet, add it to the home screen (“Add to Home Screen” on iPad / Android), and launch it fullscreen.
  3. Use the refresh button in the header if the screen looks stale; exit leaves fullscreen or goes back to the profile picker.
  4. Anyone with that URL can mark chores complete, so don't share it outside the household. Rotate by changing your family ID is not supported — but completion still requires the chore to be due today and within an unlocked time slot.

Step 9

Kid mode

Kids open the family device, tap their face, type their PIN, and land in their personal view. From there they complete chores, watch their streak, redeem rewards, and request cash-outs.

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The kid profile picker showing each kid's avatar; tapping one prompts for a 4-digit PIN.

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Profile picker → PIN.

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The kid's today view with chore cards grouped by morning/anytime/evening and a points balance at the top.

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Kid dashboard at /kid.
  1. On the family device, kids start at /switch, pick their face, and enter their PIN. Sessions last 12 hours.
  2. Chores unlock by time-of-day — morning chores show locked until 5 AM, evening chores until 3 PM. Anytime chores are always open.
  3. Kids tap a chore to mark it done. Auto-approve chores credit points immediately; approval-required chores show as “Pending” until you approve.
  4. From the kid nav, they can browse the Reward store (rewards they can afford get a big redeem button) and check their Streaks page.
  5. Cash-out— kids can convert points to a cash request. The request lands on your Rewards screen for approval; the points are debited up front so they can't double-spend.

Step 10

Approvals & cash-outs

Anything that needs your attention — chore completions waiting on approval, redeemed rewards waiting on fulfillment, cash-out requests waiting to be paid — is one tap away.

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The approvals queue showing pending chore completions with Approve and Deny buttons per row.

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Approvals queue at /approvals. Counts show in the parent nav.
  1. Approvals— chores a kid has completed that need your eyes. Approve to credit points, deny to send it back. Approval and rewards both show a count badge in the nav so you don't miss them.
  2. Rewards— the same page you used to set rewards up also surfaces redemption requests and cash-out requests. Mark fulfilled when you've handed over the screen-time / cash / whatever.
  3. Ledger— the immutable points history for every kid. Useful for spot-checking “wait, why is my balance this number?” questions.
  4. Analytics — chore completion heatmap by kid. Good for spotting weeks where someone fell off.

That's the whole tour.

Once everything's set up, you mostly live on the Today dashboard and the family device board. Come back here whenever you onboard a new kid or co-parent.

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