Sentiment analysis

It keeps listening after help arrives — and hands what it hears to a person.

What it reads, what it never does, and who sees what. The example below is made up. The rules are the real ones.

What it reads

One thing: how someone is carrying life after help reached them, in their own words.

Once their help is marked received, the house asks 7 short questions over two months. It only asks people who agreed, when they first reached out, that we may share their information with the organizations helping them.

Day 2
Day 7
Day 14
Day 21
Day 30
Day 45
Day 60

Each question waits on their check-in page, with a note by text or email when the house can send one — never between 9 p.m. and 8 a.m. Central.

Every reply is read together with their first story and every answer before it. Never one answer on its own — one hard day isn’t a pattern.

What it never does

Match words to pick a lane.
It’s told to go by what a person means. Most replies point nowhere, and that’s the right answer.
Diagnose.
It isn’t asked to. It gives back a few plain words, a lane or none, how sure it is, and one sentence why. A lane is a kind of help someone could offer, not a label on a person.
Act on its own.
It sends nothing to the person and changes nothing on the case. What it noticed is written on the case page, and a person decides whether to offer anything.
Treat danger as a lane.
Crisis is checked first, before the engine reads a word. More on that below.
Guess when it can’t read.
If the engine is switched off in a house, or a read fails, the reply is marked for a volunteer to read directly.

The four moves

Here’s one made-up reply, start to finish: the register (how they’re carrying it), the lane (where it points), the confidence (how sure it is), and the person who decides.

One reply · four moves

Made-up example — Marisol is not a real person, and nothing here came from a real case.

The check-in · day 30

GraceBridge · check-in 5 of 7A month out — does next month look steadier than last month did? If one worry still keeps you up at night, tell us which one.

Marisol · her replyRent's covered, and I'm grateful. But it's the same every month — by the 20th the money's gone and I'm up at night doing math.

Move 1: Register — how she’s carrying it

read with her first story and all 5 of her answers

steadier,stillcountingeverydollar

A few plain words. Never a score.

Move 2: Lane — where it points

Financial coaching

Coaching & Counseling door

One of 9 lanes — or none, which is the usual answer.

Move 3: Confidence — how sure it is

lowmediumhigh

Written beside the lane for the volunteer. It sends nothing and sounds no alarm.

Move 4: A person decides

Nothing goes to Marisol. What the engine noticed lands on her case page, on this card, and a volunteer decides whether to offer anything.

After-care journey — the walk continues

Day 30 · touch 5/7 sent · 5 answered

How they’re carrying it now: steadier, still counting every dollar

Lane signal: Financial coaching (Coaching & Counseling arm) (medium) · Her answers keep coming back to money running out before the month does. · suggestion only — a human carries the invitation

Coaching & Counseling door

The card in move 4 is the case page’s own After-care card, and its lane line is printed by the same code the engine uses to write it. Click anywhere in the walk to play it again.

Before any of that: the crisis check

Every reply is checked first against a fixed list of crisis phrases. It’s the one place we use a list, on purpose: a false alarm costs a volunteer a few minutes, and a miss could cost far more.

If a reply matches, the engine never reads it. The check-ins stop. If the house has named a person for this and texting is set up, that person gets a text right away, quiet hours or not:

GraceBridge crisis alert: case [case number] ([first name]) needs a human now. Reason: [why it fired]. Open the dashboard to respond.

That’s the whole text: a case number, a first name, and the reason. Never their words. Right now the house’s safety lock is on, so every alert goes to one verified number.

If no one is named, or texting isn’t set up, no text goes out. The case timeline says so, and the dashboard counts the case as a crisis intervention.

Where it can point

9 lanes, each behind one of the house’s doors. The last column is word for word what the engine is told to listen for — as meaning, not as words to find.

The 9 lanes a reply can point to, which door each belongs to, and what the engine listens for.
Lane	Door	What it listens for
Housing assistanceBenevolence	Benevolence	losing or about to lose a place to live; eviction, couch-surfing, living in a car; instability of shelter itself
Bills & essentials stabilizationBenevolence	Benevolence	a specific gap right now — a bill, groceries, a repair — without a deeper pattern behind it
Sobriety / recovery coachingCoaching & Counseling	Coaching & Counseling	drinking or using more than they want to; addiction in themselves; staying clean is a fight; relapse fear
Life coachingCoaching & Counseling	Coaching & Counseling	life feels like a mess; can't get organized; overwhelmed by everything at once with no single crisis driving it
Financial coachingCoaching & Counseling	Coaching & Counseling	always broke; money runs out every month; debt math at night; the same bill crisis keeps returning
Mental-health counselingCoaching & Counseling	Coaching & Counseling	persistent sadness, anxiety, hopeless tone WITHOUT danger language; not sleeping for reasons beyond money; 'not myself lately'
Pastoral counselingCoaching & Counseling	Coaching & Counseling	faith questions under the crisis; guilt or shame framed spiritually; wants to talk to a pastor, not a clinician
Grief counselingGrief Counseling	Grief Counseling	a death or profound loss is the engine of the story — recent or unhealed
Missions partnershipMissions	Missions	a pull toward serving in the field — local or abroad — that they can't quite articulate or place
None	—	Most replies. Only the register is written.
Danger	—	Never a lane. The crisis check takes it, before the engine.

3 more lanes on the house’s map are for churches, not people: church tech support, fundraising & events, grant writing. The check-in engine is never shown them.

Who sees what

The person: Their questions and a plain status, on their check-in page. Never the engine’s words, the lane, how sure it was, or why.
A signed-in volunteer: Everything the engine wrote, on the case page. The dashboard shows only counts.
Someone on a demo link: Made-up cases. Cases on the house’s list of real people won’t open.
The crisis contact: A text with a case number, a first name, and the reason. Never the person’s words.

Sources

This page describes GraceBridge’s own code. Here’s where each part lives.

src/lib/tier2.ts — the check-ins, crisis first, the read and its four answers, what gets written
src/lib/lanes.ts — the lanes, what each listens for, and the routing rules
src/lib/lane-signal.ts — the lane line on the case page
src/lib/cop/policy.ts — the crisis phrase list
src/lib/cop/alert.ts — the crisis text and who it goes to
src/lib/sequences.ts — quiet hours
src/lib/portal-lookup.ts — what the person’s check-in page receives
src/lib/live-cases.ts — demo links and real people’s cases

Want to watch a whole month of it instead? The Walk Line plays made-up journeys day by day.

See the Walk Line