Thank You + What's Smarter This Week
A real thank you to the first round of testers. The bug reports, the screenshots, the "Sarge said something weird" notes — all of it landed, most of it shipped a fix. Sarge is meaningfully smarter than when I sent your codes, and that's directly on you.
Notes on Tracking, Missions, and Mood
Heading into the first round, mood and Tracking mode were both under-explained. That's on me. A few things worth clarifying:
Tracking mode is the core of the app — regardless of what Sarge may tell you 😆. Show up, log what you ate, drank, did, and felt — Sarge reacts in real time. It's about honesty and accountability, not perfection; he doesn't punish you for missing nutrition numbers, and exercise targets only nudge his mood within whatever training commitment you set. He'll rib you, occasionally scold you — he's still a drill sergeant — but he's more encouraging than he sounds and harder to disappoint than you'd expect.
A couple of recent moments from my own use: when I mentioned making curry for my daughter because she likes when I do, Sarge told me to enjoy it. When I mentioned a kid's birthday party coming up, he told me not to hold back — but to report every cookie, slice of pizza, and piece of cake. The more personal you get with him, the more these moments happen.
Sarge is much harder to please in Mission mode. His mood there is primarily driven by nailing daily targets designed for your goal. Missions are early in development — the cadence, scoring criteria, and Sarge's mood weights are still being calibrated, hence the "beta" tag. If you want to try one, go for it — just be aware that it's still under construction.
See what's moving his mood. Tap his portrait — you'll see a factor strip showing whether sleep, nutrition, training, and engagement are pushing his mood up, down, or holding steady. There's also a (?) for the full rundown of what moves his mood and what the symbols mean.
Ghost him and he gets livid. Not logging for a day usually drops his mood a level. Disappear for 4+ days and expect a confrontational welcome on your next message — that's the design, not a bug. Don't take it personal; take it as motivation. If you'd rather face him with a clean slate after not logging for a few days, Profile → ⚙ → Factory Reset wipes everything and gives you a fresh start.
What's smarter this week
A few specifics, several from your reports:
- Extraction got smarter. Future-tense sleep statements ("I plan to..." / "going to bed early tonight") no longer create cards for sleep that hasn't happened. Symptom statements ("I have an earache", "my knee hurts") correctly route to health events instead of producing workout cards. Sleep quality is now a simple "rough night" toggle.
- Sarge's Notebook — much smarter, easier to find. Tap his portrait → 📓 for a clipboard view of everything he's filed about you. Edit or delete from there; new saves also surface in chat with an undo button. Judgment got better too — no more "big calories, big protein" hallucinations or treating "coffee with milk for breakfast" as a durable personal fact. He decides what's worth remembering from inside the conversation now. (Bonus: a tester told Sarge not to call her "soldier." He saved it. Next day — called her soldier anyway. When corrected: "Right, right, not a soldier. My mistake, Barbie. Won't happen again." Even his slips stay in character.)
- Sick days don't tank you. Logging a health event with Excused checked softens the mood penalty for missed workouts — in both Missions (where it also lowers the weekly target) and Tracking. A sick week shouldn't drop you to Furious.
- Speed and reliability. Sarge runs faster now, and the freezes some of you ran into are practically gone.
Look around — a few things moved
- Profile got a redesign. Trophy-room layout — your avatar + rank + name up top, then your body/training/tracking info as a tile mosaic, then daily targets, then an Achievements grid (placeholder for now — system coming). Settings tucked behind a ⚙ button.
- Shortcuts you can edit inline. That 🔒 next to your shortcut row on the chat tab? Tap it → unlocks edit mode → ± on each existing shortcut and a (+) tile to add new ones.
- Favorites you can edit inline too. Tap a meal/workout/supplement shortcut → favorites dropdown → ✏️ or 🗑️ on each row.
- ☆ vs ★ on confirmation cards. Hollow = tap to save as a favorite. Filled = already saved.
- Chat header is cleaner. Mood badge moved off the top — tap Sarge's portrait to see his mood and what's pulling it. Top of the chat now shows your rank ("Recruit" for now — Rank system coming) and current mode (Mission name or "Tracking").
Keep sending the reports
What lands hardest is concrete examples — "Sarge gave me a [card type] when I said [exact words]" beats "extraction is buggy." DM, email (sarge@sarge.fitness), whatever channel works. Every report goes into the next round of fixes.
— Will