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Guide

How things work. If something is confusing, start here.

1. How Scoring Works

Every day starts at 0 points. You earn points by logging your activities. The maximum is 100.

  • Check-in: 10 points
  • Sleep: 15 points
  • Fitness: 15 points
  • Nutrition: 15 points
  • Hydration: 5 points
  • Schedule: 10 points
  • Build: 12 points
  • Learning: 13 points
  • Life Admin: 5 points

Your score resets at midnight in your timezone. A letter grade (A through F) is assigned based on your total.

2. Daily Check-In

Check in once a day. It asks for your mood, energy level, a morning intention, and a gratitude note.

Check in before your deadline (default: 8:00 AM) for full points. After the deadline, you get partial credit. You can change the deadline in Settings.

3. Streaks

A streak counts how many days in a row you complete a habit. Each habit tracks its own streak independently.

Streak thresholds:

  • Learning: 15 minutes or more per day
  • Water: hit your daily water target
  • Workout: log any workout
  • Build: log any build session
  • Meals: log at least 3 meals
  • Sleep: go to bed before your target bedtime
  • Check-in: check in on time

Milestones at 7, 14, 30, 60, and 90 consecutive days.

4. Weekly Review

Every Sunday night, Sentinel generates a review of your week. It scores each dimension, highlights what went well, and flags areas to improve.

You can view past reviews from the Review page. The review is generated automatically. No action needed from you.

5. Finances & Bank Linking

You can track spending in two ways:

  • Manual entry: add transactions yourself from the Finances page
  • Bank linking: connect your bank account through Plaid. Transactions are imported automatically

To link a bank account, two-factor authentication (MFA) must be enabled on your Sentinel account. You can set this up in Settings.

Set a weekly spending budget in Settings to see a progress bar on the Finances page. It shows how much you have spent versus your budget.

6. Learning Goals

On the Learning page, you can create goals for things you want to learn. Examples: "TypeScript", "Read Atomic Habits", "Piano".

Goals are persistent. They stay until you mark them as completed or delete them.

When you log a learning session, you can link it to a goal. The goal then tracks your total time and number of sessions across all days.

7. Schedule & Time Blocks

Set up a weekly schedule template on the Schedule page. Each day of the week can have its own set of time blocks (e.g., "Work 9-12", "Gym 5-6").

Each day, blocks appear for you to mark as completed, skipped, or partial. Your schedule adherence percentage is calculated from how many blocks you completed. This feeds into your daily score.

8. Timer

The timer is available for Build and Learning sessions. Start it when you begin working. Stop it when you finish.

When you stop the timer, the duration is automatically filled into the log form. You can adjust it before saving.

9. Push Notifications

Turn on push notifications in Settings to receive reminders throughout the day:

  • Meal reminders at breakfast, lunch, and dinner times
  • Water reminders during the day
  • Bedtime warning before your target sleep time
  • Evening reminder to log any remaining activities
  • Bank connection issues (if you have a linked account)

You can turn notifications off at any time from Settings.

10. Installing the App

Sentinel is a Progressive Web App (PWA). You can install it on your phone for a native app experience.

iPhone (Safari):

  1. Open Sentinel in Safari
  2. Tap the Share button (square with arrow)
  3. Scroll down and tap "Add to Home Screen"

Android (Chrome):

  1. Open Sentinel in Chrome
  2. Tap the three-dot menu
  3. Tap "Install app" or "Add to Home Screen"