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Chore Swaps

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tempus2016 edited this page Aug 13, 2026 · 5 revisions

Chore swaps let a child ask to take over today's turn of a rotation chore from a sibling. The request is pending until a parent approves it, at which point the chore is reassigned to the requester for the day.

The Child card

When a Swap Is Possible

Swaps only apply to rotation chores — those using an alternating, random, balanced, or first_come assignment mode, where a single child holds today's turn.

A request is rejected outright if:

  • The chore is in everyone or unassigned mode (there is no single turn to take over)
  • The chore is already assigned to the requesting child today

Requesting a Swap

There are two ways to request a swap:

  • From the child card — see From the Child Card below.
  • With the taskmate.request_swap service, or from the chore row in the Admin Panel (Request swap button).
service: taskmate.request_swap
data:
  chore_id: b3f9a12c
  requester_id: a8c8376a
Field Required Description
chore_id Yes The rotation chore to take over
requester_id Yes The child who wants today's turn

The service is linked-child gated — a child user can only request on their own behalf. The request is stored with a pending status, recording the requester, the child who currently holds the turn (from_child_id), and a timestamp.

From the Child Card

Since v4.0.1, a child can request a swap directly from their child card. Below the day's chores, a Take over a chore section lists the rotation chores whose turn belongs to a sibling today and that this child is in the pool for. Each row shows the chore name and its (post-multiplier) points, with a Request button.

Tapping Request calls taskmate.request_swap for that child and the button changes to Requested — the request then goes to the parent's approval queue. The section only lists chores in a rotation mode (alternating, random, balanced, first_come); everyone and unassigned chores never appear, and a child's own turn is never listed.

The section is gated by the child card's show_swaps option, which is on by default. Set show_swaps: false in the card config to hide it.

Parent Approval

Pending swap requests appear to parents in the Admin Panel (with a count badge). For each, the parent can approve or reject:

Action What happens
Approve Today's turn is reassigned to the requester — the chore's current assignee becomes the requesting child for the day, recorded as a dated override on the chore. The request itself is then consumed.
Reject The pending request is removed. The rotation is unchanged.

On approval, TaskMate fires a taskmate_swap_approved event carrying chore_id, requester_id, and from_child_id.

Since v5.1.1 an approved request is removed rather than left in storage with an approved status. Nothing read a settled request, so those records accumulated for the life of the install; existing stores are swept clean on upgrade. The approval remains observable through the taskmate_swap_approved event and the chore's own dated override.

Completing a swapped chore. Before v5.1.1, approval wrote only the chore's cached assignee field while every eligibility gate resolved the day's assignee from pure rotation maths — so the swapped-to child saw the chore on their card but tapping it did nothing at all: no completion, no points, no pending approval, and the chore returned within 30 seconds. Approval now stamps a dated override that the resolver honours, which fixes completion along with the per-chore button, the to-do list, streak and perfect-day accounting, and calendar publishing. This was broken from v4.0.0 (when swaps were introduced) until v5.1.1.

When a Chore or Child Is Deleted

Deleting a chore drops any pending swap requests for it, and deleting a child drops any request they were the requester or the previous holder of. If an approved swap pointed at the deleted child, the chore's override is cleared and the chore is repointed at today's live pool immediately.

Before v5.1.1 neither delete path touched swap requests, which left the parent a permanent "? wants to swap ?" row in the approval queue that only rejecting could clear; and removing a child left their rotation chores pointing at a non-existent assignee, so those chores disappeared from every remaining child's card until midnight. Existing installs are swept clean on upgrade.

Scope of a Swap

A swap changes only today's assignment of the chore. It does not alter the underlying rotation order or anchor — the next scheduled day follows the normal rotation algorithm as if the swap had not happened.

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