The Future of Achievements (vNext Vision)

[ccpk1]

@MortenHolmRep tagging you here based on our conversation in #85! Really appreciate your offer to help.

The Current State (The Problem)

Right now, Achievements are very limited. They are static, one-time, non-resetting items that I brought over directly from the original KidsChores integration just to maintain baseline functionality for the 1.0 release.

Meanwhile, I spent a lot of time rebuilding the Badges engine (specifically Periodic/Daily Quests). The Badges engine now handles highly advanced, real-world criteria logic. Currently, Achievements are completely disconnected from this powerful engine.

The vNext Vision: Achievements - Baseline

Achievements should share and inherit the capable criteria logic that Badges already use. Achievements should also have the capability to sit one level higher monitoring long-term behavior, badge history, and cumulative effort.

Examples of vNext Achievements

• "Earn 3 different Badges"
• "Complete the Daily Badge 14 times"
• "Reach 10,000 lifetime points"

I'll give this some more thought, but wanted to at least start the thread so others can chime in.

[MortenHolmRep]

Thanks for your great work and discussion so far @ccpk1!
After reviewing the repository, I'd like to propose setting up a Roadmap 2.0 project (or equivalent versioning) in GitHub Projects tab. The goal is to track design-phase issues against a target release (or sub releases), and to run parallel vNext tracks for other areas (dashboard, core, chores, UX, etc. AI is good at scoping these areas) that feed into a coherent versioning plan.

Following task atomicity, each issue represents the smallest viable addition and some suggestions below map to a single issue, others to several.

Also, many of these suggestions follow a generalisation pattern across all gamification types such as badges, achievements, challenges, and future types (maybe a good idea to find out what future types could be), and those cross-cutting concerns should be a high priority to reduce code smell potential for better maintainability.

I am still reading up on the different gamification type definitions (#89 fit into that vNext discussion), I tried to simplify their meaning and as I see it we have:

• Badge: keep doing this
• Achievement: you did this, once
• Challenge: do this before time runs out

And I tried to match the suggestions to the "achievement" type below:

Tiered Achievement Progressions
See #85. Achievements linked as an ordered chain; only the active tier is surfaced.

Expanded Achievement Types
Current types: STREAK, TOTAL, DAILY_MIN. Candidates for expansion:
*Points earned
*Badges earned (maps to existing BADGE_AWARD_COUNT)
*Specific chore completed N times
*Variety; N distinct chores completed
*Rewards redeemed

We should draft a near complete canonical list of supported types across the system (maybe a good use case of AI), with one issue per type, identifying types that should be assignments to 2.0.

Secret Achievements
Achievements hidden until earned, details concealed beforehand. Specifically rewards discovery and experimentation in using the system in the environment. Also broadens applicability to non-household use cases (games, habit tracking) and users could set up automations with it.

Shared Achievements
Household-scoped (global) achievements where progress is pooled across assignees, as opposed to per-user. Serve as shared motivation between users.

Unified Award Manifest
Achievements currently support reward_points only. Aligning achievements (and challenges) to the same award manifest as badges (points, multiplier, items) would unify reward handling across all types and simplify future additions.

Seasonal Reset
A configurable reset schedule on achievements (or the system as a whole) annual, quarterly, monthly, or custom. Complements tiered progressions and shared achievements.

Narrative Milestone Labels
Optional milestones: list[{at_pct: float, label: str}] on any gamification object. Surfaces contextual feedback at progress thresholds (e.g. at_pct: 0.9, label: "Almost there"). Already supported by overall_progress from evaluate_canonical_target().

Achievement Templates
A toggle during chore creation/editing that auto-generates a gamification type, such as tiered progression from a named template. Example: streak_standard produces tiers at 7 / 14 / 30 / 60 / 120 / 180 / 365 days, scaled to the chore's point value and frequency.

Helps in lowering the barrier for casual users while keeping the full configuration available. The UI pattern would be a per-type toggle with an optional template selector in the chore form:
[ ] Achievements [streak_standard ▾]
[ ] Badges [none ▾]
[ ] Challenges [none ▾]

Achievement tracking
Currently the dashboard show all achievements, the list can be long, especially with achievement templates. A smart filter could be added to only show achievements that have had progress and/or a manual "track" toggle for achievements the user always want shown.