Open Questions Register — Loyalty (v1.1)

Translation. Authoritative: ../../design/open-questions-v1.md.

Status: 0 open · 27 closed on 2026-08-17 · the 14 loyalty specs and their PRD sit at 0.2.0 / review, awaiting only sign-off to reach approved and 1.0.0.

OQ-LOY-02 — expiration becomes a policy of the point currency, not of its kind. Status points may expire or not, as each company configures. A consequence closed in the same move: when a status currency expires, the grace period and the tier.grace_started event stop being optional, because otherwise a member loses a tier without ever having stopped buying.
OQ-LOY-07 — multi-program is a first-class capability in F1. It reverses DEC-H2, so ADR-021 was written first and the specs were updated from it. Program count is an entitlement, not a metered metric.

OQ-LOY-14 also left a cross-cutting principle that now lives in standards/api.md: every policy parameter is tenant-configurable with a published default.

Owner’s answers (2026-08-17)

Twenty-five landed exactly as recommended. The exceptions and nuances:

ID	Answer
OQ-LOY-01	Per program. Also ratified that a program belongs to exactly one company.
OQ-LOY-02	Configurable per currency. Both kinds may expire or not; the platform must allow every combination.
OQ-LOY-07	Multi-program from the start — see ADR-021.
OQ-LOY-11	Accepted, raised to 12 characters so that hundreds of millions of codes do not make generation fight itself.
OQ-LOY-14	Accepted as a default, with the general principle that every company can configure it.

The 27 questions and their recommendations

Phase F1a blockers

ID	Question	Affects	REC
✅ OQ-LOY-01	Does the return window (the time an `earn` stays `pending`) live on the program or per earning rule?	FS-LOY-0002	Per program. Per rule is more expressive, but a member who sees two earns become available on different timelines does not understand it, and neither does support.
✅ OQ-LOY-02	Do status points expire, or only redeemable ones?	FS-LOY-0002, 0010, PRD	Status points do not expire by lot; they lapse via the qualification window. Two distinct mechanisms; mixing them produces the classic bug of losing a tier through an expiry nobody saw.
✅ OQ-LOY-03	Is `revoke` distinct from a negative `adjust`, or is the distinction only reporting?	FS-LOY-0002	Distinct, and the difference is intent. `revoke` is “this should never have been credited”; `adjust` is “we corrected an amount”.
✅ OQ-LOY-04	Does `points_lifetime_earned` live on `contact_balances` or a separate reporting projection?	FS-LOY-0003	On `contact_balances`. It grows monotonically and updates in a transaction that is already open.
✅ OQ-LOY-05	When several rules match one event, do all apply or does a priority stop at the first?	FS-LOY-0004	All apply, with an optional `stop_on_match` per rule. The common case is cumulative; stopping by default surprises.
✅ OQ-LOY-06	Is the per-contact budget evaluated over the campaign lifetime or a rolling window?	FS-LOY-0004	Campaign lifetime. A window inside another window is hard to explain and to audit.
✅ OQ-LOY-07	Does the default program get a tenant-visible name, or a fixed internal one?	FS-LOY-0001	Superseded by the owner: multi-program from day one (ADR-021).

Phase F1b

ID	Question	Affects	REC
✅ OQ-LOY-08	Is a reward’s `per_contact_limit` counted over the member’s lifetime or a rolling period?	FS-LOY-0005	Configurable, default lifetime. A nullable `limit_window_days` covers both without branching the logic.
✅ OQ-LOY-09	On rollback, do restored points keep their original expiry or reset it?	FS-LOY-0006	Keep the original. Resetting turns rollback into a way to extend expiries, and someone will find it.
✅ OQ-LOY-10	Is there a time limit after which a redemption can no longer be rolled back?	FS-LOY-0006	Yes, configurable per program, default 90 days.
✅ OQ-LOY-11	Coupon code length and alphabet: how much entropy versus being readable aloud?	FS-LOY-0007	12 characters over Crockford Base32 (raised from 10 on the owner’s volume argument).
✅ OQ-LOY-12	Can a generic code be restricted to a segment rather than a contact?	FS-LOY-0007	Yes. It is the natural shape of a campaign and the segment already exists in `core`.
✅ OQ-LOY-13	When a non-combinable set is violated, keep the highest-precedence benefit or reject the whole request?	FS-LOY-0008	Keep the best and report the exclusion. Rejecting everything at a counter leaves the cashier with no move.
✅ OQ-LOY-14	Default referral attribution window: 30, 60 or 90 days?	FS-LOY-0009	60 days, as a configurable default.
✅ OQ-LOY-15	Do fraud-flagged conversions expire if nobody reviews them?	FS-LOY-0009	They do not expire; they escalate at 14 days.
✅ OQ-LOY-16	Default tier qualification window: rolling 12 months or calendar year?	FS-LOY-0010	Rolling 12 months. Continuous and fair, and it avoids the January cliff.
✅ OQ-LOY-17	Does entering grace emit an event?	FS-LOY-0010	Yes, `loyalty.tier.grace_started`. One of the highest-performing retention campaigns in the format.
✅ OQ-LOY-18	Can a member skip a tier when one event crosses two thresholds?	FS-LOY-0010	Yes, jump to the highest reached, emitting once.
✅ OQ-LOY-19	Default expiry-warning horizons: 30 and 7 days, or a single 14-day warning?	FS-LOY-0011	30 and 7. The 30 gives time to react; the 7 converts.
✅ OQ-LOY-20	Is `cohort_key` the expiry date or the month?	FS-LOY-0011	The date. The month groups lots with different expiries into one misleading warning.

Phase F2

ID	Question	Affects	REC
✅ OQ-LOY-21	Can a challenge be repeatable with a reset, or are instances distinct?	FS-LOY-0012	Distinct instances from a template. A reset destroys participation history.
✅ OQ-LOY-22	Do badges carry status points, making them a tier input?	FS-LOY-0012	Not by themselves; yes as an optional rule effect.
✅ OQ-LOY-23	`apply_discount` reservation TTL: 15, 30 or 60 minutes?	FS-LOY-0013	30 minutes. Covers a checkout with real friction without freezing campaign budget.
✅ OQ-LOY-24	Line-item discounts in the first version, or cart-level only?	FS-LOY-0013	Cart only. Line items need a product model we do not have.
✅ OQ-LOY-25	Cart snapshot retention: the standard tier, or shorter?	FS-LOY-0013	90 days fixed. It is not an order.
✅ OQ-LOY-26	Wallet pass push coalescing window: 5, 15 or 60 minutes?	FS-LOY-0014	15 minutes.
✅ OQ-LOY-27	Is the wallet pass offered automatically or on request?	FS-LOY-0014	On request, with a prominent link.

Blocked by something other than a decision

ID	Topic	Status
P-3	Unit prices per metered metric	Method agreed: cost floor from the real stack, ceiling from market anchoring, first-plan allowances that cover the design partner’s first year. The missing deliverable is the cost model, and it must exist before G1 — if serving costs more than the market pays per contact, we want to know while the architecture can still change.
OQ-LOY-28	Wallet pass signing libraries	Needs an ADR covering four things: a maintained library per platform behind a port, the certificate lifecycle (expiry, rotation without reissuing, early alerting) which is what actually breaks programs in production, which accounts issue them, and the coalescing window already fixed at 15 min. Blocking spike first: can one Apple Pass Type ID serve every tenant with per-pass branding?
OQ-LOY-29	Default expiration per vertical template	Yes, but recommended and never silently applied. The template ships the policy with its rationale, onboarding shows it, and the tenant actively accepts or changes it — which also produces evidence that they chose, useful in the DPA. Starting points: subscriptions 24 rolling months, retail 12, high-frequency 6–12. For the lawyer: confirm whether point expiry has legal limits in the supported countries.

Changelog

Version	Date	Change	Why	Author
1.1.0	2026-08-17	All 27 answered and closed; applied to the specs, which move to 0.2.0 / review	The owner answered the complete batch	daniel + claude-opus-5
1.0.0	2026-08-17	Initial register: 27 open questions for the loyalty module, plus 3 blocked by something else	Consolidate in one place what was preventing 14 specs from being approved	daniel + claude-opus-5

Start here

Design registry

Open Questions Register — Loyalty (v1.1)

Owner’s answers (2026-08-17)

The 27 questions and their recommendations

Phase F1a blockers

Phase F1b

Phase F2

Blocked by something other than a decision

Changelog

​Owner’s answers (2026-08-17)

​The 27 questions and their recommendations

​Phase F1a blockers

​Phase F1b

​Phase F2

​Blocked by something other than a decision

​Changelog

Owner’s answers (2026-08-17)

The 27 questions and their recommendations

Phase F1a blockers

Phase F1b

Phase F2

Blocked by something other than a decision

Changelog