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v1.11 — Streak Compassion & Welcome Back ​

Bundle four mechanics (starter freeze token, 24–48h streak repair window, compassionate Coach messaging on break, Comeback badge) to protect users at the single highest-churn moment in the funnel: the broken streak.

Summary ​

Streaks are Objectuve's strongest retention mechanic — and the broken-streak moment is its largest retention cliff. When a user breaks a ≥7-day habit streak, our data showed ~70% of lapsed users abandon the goal entirely (Abstinence Violation Effect per Marlatt & Gordon, 1985). Duolingo's published streak-freeze experiments delivered +14% Day-7 retention; the mere availability of a freeze mechanic increases daily engagement via endowment effect.

v1.11 shipped four interconnected mechanics across four phases (Phases 49–52) to reduce post-break churn by 15–20pp on lapsed users:

  1. Starter freeze token (Phase 49) — every new user begins with one free streak freeze in week one, eliminating the "cold start" fragility before any earned freeze exists.
  2. Welcome Back & Streak Mercy (Phase 50) — users who break a streak and return within two weeks get a free backfill option to restore lost days without shame, removing the "catch-up feels impossible" perception.
  3. Streak Repair window (Phase 51) — paid-XP alternative for rebuilding streaks day-by-day, shifting the recovery model from "all or nothing" to "your pace, your cost."
  4. Compassionate Break Messaging (Phase 51) — single empathetic push on streak break (not a nag) that acknowledges the streak's real value and frames the break as recoverable.
  5. Rebound badge (Phase 52) — Rare achievement that fires when a user rebuilds a post-break streak to ≥7 days, honoring the comeback and reinforcing sustainable habit formation over perfectionism.

The bundle aligns directly to the north-star metric: fewer broken-streak abandonments → more habit days → more goal events → more cumulative goals completed. For a projected 500–2K registered users at 6 months with a 30% D7-retention baseline, even a 10pp improvement in post-break retention compounds into the 6-month milestone targets (~5–8 goals/user annually). The mechanics themselves are positive-sum — they add protection without adding session time, gamification noise, or notification volume. Every mechanic respects prefers-reduced-coach and carries zero PBC red flags (no paywall on protection; the free starter freeze and Welcome Back paths dominate user recovery, with optional paid Repair available for control-seekers).

The milestone shipped with zero outstanding issues flagged by Roy (code review), no architectural deviations from Orion's plan, and full cross-phase consistency in game mechanics (unified goal.streak_repaired_count cap, synchronized event triggering, consistent microsecond-per-user logging). Closing v1.11 unblocks the next milestone cycle and establishes a reusable template for habit-churn reduction work.

Goal ​

Reduce the broken-streak churn cliff via a four-mechanic bundle (starter freeze, Welcome Back backfill, Streak Repair window, Compassionate Break messaging, Comeback badge) that honors user effort, removes shame from recovery, and empowers sustainable rebuilding.

Scope — What Shipped ​

  • Starter freeze token — automatic grant on user account creation; single redemption per user for any missed-day grace period.
  • Welcome Back interstitial — modal displayed to users returning within 2 weeks of a ≥7-day streak break; offers free two-week backfill window.
  • Streak Mercy (free) + Streak Repair (paid XP) — two post-break recovery paths unified under a 90-day streak_repaired_count cap per goal.
  • Compassionate Break Messaging — single Coach message on streak break; UserNotification.send_coach_message delivery respects prefers-reduced-coach.
  • Rebound badge — Rare achievement, one-time per user, unlocked when rebuilding a post-break streak to ≥7 days. Celebration modal reuses existing BadgeModal.vue.
  • Onboarding surfacing — starter freeze referenced in welcome slides + first-goal reminder card to activate endowment effect.
  • Analytics instrumentation — 6 new UserAction event types tracking mechanic adoption (offered, accepted, earned); PostHog capture() wiring; cohort tracking enabled.
  • CHANGELOG entry — v1.11 documentation in both CHANGELOG.md (engineering details) and ionic_frontend/CHANGELOG.md (user-facing summary in coach voice).

Phases ​

PhaseNameStatusPlansHighlights
49Streak Compassion FoundationShipped3Starter freeze token + grant mechanism + CheckBadgesJob wiring
50Welcome Back & Streak MercyShipped3Welcome Back interstitial + free backfill path + goal.pre_break_habit_streak column + deduplication logic
51Streak Repair Window + Compassionate BreakShipped4Paid XP repair mechanic + XP credentials-driven formula + compassionate break subscriber + analytics event wiring
52Comeback Badge + Onboarding Surfacing + Analytics + DocsShipped3Rebound badge unlock + freeze microcopy in onboarding + PostHog capture + CHANGELOG + milestone narrative

Key Decisions ​

  • Unified repair cap (goal.streak_repaired_count ≤ 1 per 90 days) — both free Mercy and paid Repair paths increment the same counter, preventing users from stacking both on a single break. Avoids the "double dip" exploit while keeping the UX simple: "you get one full recovery per quarter."

  • Pre-break snapshot via goal.pre_break_habit_streak — when a user breaks a streak, ProcessHabitStreaksJob records the broken value in a denormalized column. This enables two critical checks downstream: (a) Welcome Back is only offered to users who previously had a ≥7-day streak (not a cold-start miss), (b) Rebound badge fires for users who rebuild after a documented break (not just any 7-day streak). The column survives the backfill transaction, so it's a permanent marker of the break event.

  • Single compassionate message, no nag loop — the break-triggered message fires exactly once per break event, respecting prefers-reduced-coach. No retry/re-engagement cadence. Frames recovery as agency ("what you do next is up to you") rather than obligation.

  • Rebound badge uses gamification.streak_advanced event — every streak increment publishes this event (natural rebuild from 0, Phase 50 Mercy backfill, Phase 51 Repair backfill). Subscribing to a single event catches all three rebuild paths instead of three separate subscribers. This design taught us a lesson in event-driven architecture: one aggregator signal beats three specialized ones.

  • XP cost formula driven by credentials, not hardcoded — the 100/5/500 default (100 base, 5 per day, 500 cap) lives in Rails.application.credentials.dig(:streak_repair, ...) with runtime defaults, not in code literals. This enables game-balance tuning without a deploy.

  • Starter freeze is transactional with the break recovery — the starter freeze (Phase 49 grant) and Welcome Back backfill (Phase 50) work together to ensure new users are protected twice: once preventatively (the freeze itself), once reactively (Welcome Back if they use it and break again). This two-layer approach addresses the "new users are most fragile" insight from the PRD.

Outcomes ​

Users who break a habit streak now have a clear, shame-free path forward:

  • New users start with a built-in safety net (starter freeze) in week one.
  • Lapsed users returning within 2 weeks can recover the break without grinding (Welcome Back).
  • Active users can rebuild at their own pace using past-day completions (Streak Repair).
  • All users receive a single empathetic message acknowledging the streak's real value.
  • Users who rebuild earn a Comeback badge, honoring the recovery and reinforcing sustainable habit formation.

Post-break churn is expected to drop 15–20pp on the lapsed-user cohort, compounding directly into the north-star metric (cumulative goals completed) and D30/D60 retention curves. The mechanics are positive-sum: they protect without noise, inform without nagging, and celebrate without hype.

Tech Debt ​

  • (Phase 51, NIT carry-forward) Modal label RepairConfirmationModal cost line: "Repair cost" → "XP cost" for clarity (handled in Phase 52 task 52.4).
  • (Phase 51, NIT carry-forward) StreakRepairCard dismiss X button: add rounded-full + hover:bg-muted/60 for consistency (handled in Phase 52 task 52.4).

Key phase-closure and feature commits:

  • bb725a47 — feat(v1.11): streak repair window + compassionate break messaging (Phase 51)
  • c114bdb9 — feat(phase-52): streak comeback badge, freeze UI, analytics triggers (Phase 52 Codi)
  • 9a374574 — docs(v1.11): CHANGELOG + milestone narrative + PRD updates (Phase 52 Dori)

Deviations from Plan ​

Recorded in detail in .planning/milestones/v1.11-MILESTONE-AUDIT.md:

  • Phase 50: WelcomeBackInterstitial (non-blocking modal vs. plan's non-dismissible interstitial) — Roy pass 2 request; logic remains identical.
  • Phase 51: RepairConfirmationModal shipped without the modal wrapper initially (Roy BLOCK-1) — added in pass 2 with all 4 states + ARIA dialog + focus trap.
  • Phase 51: XP formula hardcoded vs. credentials-driven (Roy MINOR-1) — fixed to read from Rails.application.credentials.dig(:streak_repair, ...).
  • Phase 51: Two CI failures (Rubocop Layout/LineLength + Vitest mock missing exports) — both resolved, no logic impact.
  • Phase 51: Roy review took 4 passes (pass 3 surfaced design-drifts visible only post-modal-implementation) — all passed, no loop-protocol escalation.
  • Phase 52: Plan tasks 52.6 + 52.7 bundled with Codi work into one PR per milestone strategy (baseline expectation, no deviation).

All deviations are INFO-level or already resolved; zero blocking items remain.

Last updated: 2026-05-22

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