Help & FAQ

A Path is an ordered sequence of Outcomes toward a larger goal — for example, "Run Your First Marathon" or "Zero to Founder". A Path gives you a structured route; you don't have to follow it in order unless the outcomes genuinely build on each other.

An Outcome is a single credential-worthy goal you pursue — for example, "Ship a first web app" or "Run a 5K race". When you complete an Outcome, it earns a green ✓ badge and appears in your Trophy Case. Outcomes are permanent.

A Milestone is a checkpoint inside an Outcome that a Proof attaches to. For example, the "Become an AI Engineer" Outcome has six milestones: Set up your dev environment → Build a basic NLP pipeline → … → Ship a production AI feature. Milestones guide your work; completing them advances your progress.

A Proof is the evidence you submit against a Milestone — a link to a repo, a race result, a recorded conversation, a shipped URL. A Proof must be a real artifact: something that exists in the world and that a peer can inspect. Proofs are public by default (you can set them private).

Your Trophy Case is your public profile at powstik.com/[your-handle]. It shows every completed Outcome, your proof history, and your trust tier. It is distinct from your account settings, which are private.

Trust Tiers (T0–T4) reflect the quality of verification behind a completed Outcome. T0 = unverified. T1 = 1–2 independent peers confirmed the proof. T2 = 3+ independent peers. T3 = a verified coach. T4 = an institutional verifier with a professional profile URL. Higher tiers mean your credential carries more weight.

Any Powstik user with a 7-day-old account who is not you can verify a Milestone-linked proof. For higher trust tiers, you can invite an external verifier (a colleague, coach, or professional contact) via the verifier panel on your enrollment page — they receive one invite email and then work entirely in-app.

Self-verification is blocked server-side. You cannot endorse any proof where your user ID matches the submitter's. No exceptions.

When you invite an external verifier, they receive exactly one email with a link to your proof. After that, all communication is in-app — no follow-up emails are ever sent automatically, except a reminder you trigger yourself (with a 24-hour rate limit).

You cannot mark a Milestone complete unless (a) you have submitted a Proof for it and (b) at least one verified, non-self endorsement exists on that Proof. The final Milestone of an Outcome requires two verified endorsements.

Yes — a verified Powstik coach counts as a T3 verifier. If a coach has a professional URL on their verifier profile, that elevates to T4.

Yes, permanently. Enrolling in any Path, submitting Proofs, peer verification, earning and sharing a completed Outcome, browsing Paths and Outcomes, and K12 contest participation are all free with no trial period and no usage cap.

Coach access, team workspaces (for organisations), family plans, and advanced analytics are future paid features. None of these gate anything in the core proof loop.

Yes — every resource linked from a Milestone map uses free resources only: Khan Academy, freeCodeCamp, MIT OCW, fast.ai, Kaggle Learn, OSSU, and YouTube. No Coursera or Udemy links are used.

Never. No advertising, ever, in any version of Powstik.

Proofs are PUBLIC by default. You can set any proof to PRIVATE at submission time. LONGEVITY domain proofs marked "clinical / sensitive health data" are forced PRIVATE automatically and never appear in any feed.

Your Trophy Case URL is always accessible (Powstik is about verified public track records). You can make individual proofs private. A setting to hide your profile entirely is not yet available.

No. Your email is never shown publicly. It is used only for account identification, transactional notifications (endorsement requests, claim alerts), and streak reminders — nothing else.

The CLINICAL flag is for sensitive Longevity proofs — blood glucose targets, weight loss under medical supervision, cardiac rehab, and similar health data. These are always PRIVATE and never appear in feeds, even your own public feed.

Yes. In Settings → Data & Privacy, you can download all your data as a JSON file. This includes your proofs, enrollments, endorsements, and profile.

Yes. In Settings → Data & Privacy, you can permanently delete your account and all associated data. Deletion is irreversible.

Completed Outcome snapshots are immutable records — they cannot be altered after they are created. This is intentional: a credential that could be edited post-completion has no integrity. If you delete your account, your Outcome snapshots are also deleted.

No. You can enroll in any Outcome directly from the Outcomes catalog without joining a Path. A Path is useful if you want structure; standalone Outcomes are useful if you know exactly what you want to prove.

Yes. There is no limit on active Outcomes. Your dashboard shows all active Outcomes; the Path you enrolled through (if any) tracks your progress across them.

A Path is a sequence of Outcomes — a bundle with an overall credential at the end. An Outcome is a standalone goal with its own milestones and proof requirements. You earn a ✓ on each individual Outcome you complete, regardless of whether you're on a Path.

University Paths (marked with an "Undergraduate" or "Postgraduate" badge) follow academic proof standards — practitioner-reviewed documents, live Q&A challenges, and supervised practice logs. They are structured to simulate rigour equivalent to a university course, but built around real-world artifacts, not essays or tests.

A Team Workspace lets a group of people (typically a company or cohort) share Outcomes, track collective progress, and manage seat-based membership. Team Workspaces are a paid feature for organisations.

Verified coaches on Powstik create structured programs built on top of Growth Paths. Enrolling in a coach program gives you milestone guidance, resources selected by the coach, and the coach as a T3 verifier on your proofs. Coaches must hold a verified Outcome in any domain they coach.

Yes. The Teams domain includes a claim system: if someone logs a proof that involves you as a subject (e.g., a manager who tagged you in a leadership proof), you receive a notification and can confirm or dispute the claim within 48 hours.

Yes. K12 Paths (grades K–5, 6–8, 6–12, and 9–12) have age-appropriate proof requirements: a minimum of 40 combined words (vs 100 for adults), guided prompts ("What did you make or do?" / "How do you know you succeeded?"), and accepted verifiers include teachers and parents, not only peers.

K12 proofs can be verified by peers, teachers, or parents. For physical proofs (photos, project results), a parent or teacher attestation is explicitly accepted as valid verification.

No. K12 proofs require 40 words total across two guided prompts. Photo or link proofs (image, URL) bypass the word count entirely — the artifact is self-evidencing.

Bi-annual contest windows (Spring: Jan–Jun, Autumn: Jul–Dec) automatically include all K12 path enrollments. There are no leaderboards and no rankings — the contest celebrates completions, not comparisons. Students who complete a K12 path during a contest window receive a contest stamp on their proof.

No. Student data is never shared with third parties. No advertising. No selling of data. See the Privacy & visibility section for full details.