Rewards

The reward catalog — every reward that could exist ("Ice cream", "Movie night pick", "New game") — comes from two layers that merge into one list:

• Built-in defaults — a static config file, server/config/rewards.js, that ships 18 entries across four cost tiers. This is the fresh-install starting point.
• Custom rewards — anything a parent adds from the companion phone app, stored in the database. These sit alongside the built-ins in the same catalog.

You don't have to touch the config file at all: for day-to-day use, add and manage rewards from your phone (below). The file is still there for the built-in defaults and for anyone who prefers editing rewards as code.

Adding rewards from the phone

Naming a reward means typing, and typing never happens on the wall — so creating and editing rewards lives in the Rewards tab of the companion PWA (parents only).

Tap Add a reward and you get a live-updating card preview plus four fields:

Field
Name	What the family sees. Up to 80 characters.
Cost	In points, set with the − / + stepper (or type a number). Points are flat — 1 per chore — so keep costs in the "a few days to a couple weeks of chores" range or the economy stops feeling achievable.
Color	One of the five tile colors (sky / fern / iris / coral / gold).
Icon	A Material Symbols name. Type it and the preview icon updates as you go, or tap one from the curated grid of common picks below the field.

The preview card at the top is exactly what lands on the wall, so you can see the reward before you save it. Tap Add reward (or Save changes when editing) and it appears in the catalog immediately — the wall picks it up live.

Custom rewards can be edited or removed from the same list later; built-in rewards can only be hidden (see below), since their name, cost, and icon are authored in the config file.

A redeemed reward is kept, not erased

If you remove a custom reward that a kid has already redeemed at some point, it's hidden rather than deleted — that way past redemptions still show the right name in the weekly recap. A reward that was never redeemed is deleted outright. Its internal id is also frozen once created (editing the name never changes it), for the same reason.

Hiding rewards from the wall

Any reward — built-in or custom — can be hidden so it doesn't clutter the catalog, without losing it. Hiding is the one catalog action that needs no keyboard, so it's reachable both from the phone's Rewards tab and on the wall via the Reward tab's Manage button (tap the eye icon on a reward's card). Hiding a reward also removes it from everyone who was working toward it. Tap the eye again to bring it back.

This is how you retire a built-in you don't use: you can't rename or delete it from the UI (that's a config-file edit), but you can hide it and forget about it.

Assigning and redeeming

Assigning a catalog reward to a specific person ("Mom is working toward a spa day") happens on the wall, via the Reward tab's Manage button — tap a member's initial on the reward's card. It's on-wall because it's a spontaneous, tap-only action (no typing), not something worth reaching for a phone.

Tapping Redeem checks that person's balance, and if it covers the cost: deducts it, logs the redemption, and drops the assignment (redeem it again later to save up for a repeat). Redeem is disabled automatically when the balance is too low, and hidden rewards never appear on the redeem grid.

Editing the built-in defaults

The 18 shipped rewards live in server/config/rewards.js. Editing this file is optional — it's for changing the built-in defaults themselves, or for anyone who'd rather manage rewards as code than tap through the phone.

export const rewards = () => [
  // Small — same day, low-stakes
  { id: 'pick-dessert', name: "Pick tonight's dessert", icon: 'cake', catKey: 'coral', cost: 4 },
  { id: 'ice-cream', name: 'Ice cream', icon: 'icecream', catKey: 'coral', cost: 5 },
  // ...

  // Medium — about a week
  { id: 'late-bedtime', name: 'Late bedtime', icon: 'bedtime', catKey: 'gold', cost: 10 },
  { id: 'parent-one-on-one', name: 'One-on-one time with Mom or Dad', icon: 'favorite', catKey: 'coral', cost: 12 },
  // ...

  // Large — about two weeks
  { id: 'new-game', name: 'New game', icon: 'sports_esports', catKey: 'sky', cost: 25 },
  { id: 'day-trip', name: 'Day trip', icon: 'attractions', catKey: 'fern', cost: 40 },
  // ...

  // Big — occasional, aspirational
  { id: 'big-outing', name: 'A bigger outing — theme park, aquarium, etc.', icon: 'confirmation_number', catKey: 'fern', cost: 70 }
];

Field	Notes
id	Stable key used by the points ledger. Renaming name is fine; changing id orphans that reward from its past redemption history.
icon	A Material Symbols name (rounded style, already bundled).
catKey	One of sky / fern / iris / coral / gold — controls the icon tile color.
cost	In points. Points are flat (1 per chore), so costs are calibrated to that scale — keep new entries in the "a few days to a couple weeks of chores" range (or "occasional, aspirational" for the rare big one) or the economy stops feeling achievable.

On the default catalog's mix: it leans toward experiences, privileges, and one-on-one time (a friend over, picking the weekend activity, a day off chores) rather than toys or purchases — reward-system research consistently finds that skew builds the habit without nudging kids toward materialism the way an all-toys catalog can. Feel free to prune or retheme it entirely; the tiering is a convention, not a requirement enforced by the app.

After editing, docker compose up -d picks it up (no rebuild needed — the file is read fresh per request). Custom rewards added from the phone are stored separately in the database, so they survive config-file edits untouched.