What's New

A running record of meaningful changes to SpiritDAO and its documentation. Most recent first.

September 2026 — Journal and Places

A journal, not just a forum

Any pod forum category can now be set to journal mode: entries newest first, grouped by month, with cover photos and excerpts, and the formatting editor on by default. Pair it with a Pod Face rename of the Forum button and your community has a Journal everywhere it looks. Leaders: Manage → Forum.

Places: a members-only shared map

A new Places add-on (Manage → Modules → Add-Ons) puts a map on your pod's page. Pin your land and assets, partner organisations, gathering sites, resources, and the places you are still envisioning. Each pin carries a description, a photo, and connections to journal entries, people and other pins. Proposed pins draw dashed; sensitive ones can be approximate. Managing pins is a delegable role permission (Places Manage); every member can view. Members can also choose, from Identity → Location, to appear on their pods' maps, approximately by default.

See the new Journal and Places guide.

Under the hood

Sign-in now proves control of your wallet to our server, and a ring of older API routes require your session before they act on your behalf.

August 2026 — Pod Faces: your community, your look

Menu renaming (added mid-August)

By community request, faces can now rename the home-screen menu items too: Bounties can become Quests, Governance can become Council — whatever fits your community's vocabulary (up to 20 characters per button). Renames live in the same Face editor, show in the live preview, and travel with the face: members wearing your look see your names; everyone else sees the standard ones. Page headings and notifications keep the standard names so guides and instructions still make sense.

Communities can now skin the app

Pods can design a custom appearance — a color scheme, icon style, and custom menu names — and publish it as their pod's face. Members choose whether to wear it; nothing is ever forced. Highlights:

• Leaders design in the pod's Manage → Modules → Custom Appearance

editor: five starter palettes, per-color fine-tuning, two curated icon sets, and a live preview.

• Members choose from Identity → Appearance or the **"Wear this

look"** chip on the pod's page. One tap applies it app-wide; one tap reverts to the classic SpiritDAO look.

• Readability is guaranteed — every face must pass WCAG AA contrast

checks before it can publish.

• Same permissioning as everything else — face design is a delegable role

permission (Appearance Manage), leader-granted by default.

See the new Pod Faces guide for the full walkthrough.

June 2026 — New documentation, a smarter assistant, and the current $SELF model

Documentation rebuilt

These docs were rewritten from the ground up to match how SpiritDAO actually works today. Highlights:

• Two tiers. Member guides ("how to use it") and developer documentation

("how it's built") now live side by side.

• Current token model throughout. Every page reflects the soulbound $SELF

design and the Tenure system (see below), replacing older descriptions of a transferable $SELF.

• One source of truth. The same content that powers these pages also powers

the Sensemaker assistant, so they stay in agreement.

Sensemaker, upgraded

The Sensemaker assistant on our website now runs on the same engine as the in-app assistant. It can answer questions about both how the platform works (pods, governance, tokens, events) and Temporal Naturalism philosophy — where before, the website version only knew the philosophy. Its knowledge has been refreshed to the current platform.

The current $SELF & Tenure model, documented

For anyone catching up, the docs now fully describe:

• $SELF is soulbound — earned through participation, never bought or

transferred, spent only by burning ("burn-to-pay") for marketplace items and event tickets.

• It fades gently over roughly two years, keeping it a measure of recent

participation. Expiring $SELF converts into permanent standing rather than being lost.

• Tenure is your permanent, ecosystem-wide standing from all the $SELF you've

ever earned — five bands from Curious to Elder — and it only ever grows.

• $SYSTEM remains the transferable, capital-backed community currency.

In one line: $SELF is verified human time, recorded where it was spent, that fades unless renewed — and it never becomes money.