Tier 1 — Know
costs minutes- Look up who represents you at all three levels
- Find out when your next local election is, and what is on the ballot
- Read one bill your own representative introduced
- Find your city or county's public meeting calendar
Your trophy case
Everything you have earned
Badges from the Arcade, units from the Academy, and the civic-action ladder — in one place, on your device, shown to nobody unless you send it yourself.
Rank
Reading your device’s record…
What this is worth, exactly
Everything outside the Arcade is self-reported, and every surface that shows it says so. Nothing here is a credential, and no Outpost feature is unlocked or gated by any of it.
Founder: 'can be public or not.' Defaults decide what most people end up with, so the default has to be the safe one. Publishing by default and offering an opt-out would make a public civic record of every person who ever used this app — and a civic record is precisely the kind of thing that becomes dangerous later under a government nobody has met yet.
The Arcade
Earned from rounds this device actually recorded.
The Academy
Earned from units you marked finished. Nothing checked them.
Civic action
Earned from your own log of things you did in the world.
The civic-action ladder
Because the usual civic-engagement pitch skips straight to the hardest thing and loses everybody. The ladder makes the first rung small enough to actually happen this week, and the fifth rung reachable rather than mythical.
Tier 2 — Watch
costs an hour, repeated- Attend one public meeting — council, school board, zoning — with no plan to speak
- Track one bill from introduction through to its outcome
- Read one agency's budget line for something you use
- Follow one lobbying registration on an issue you care about
Tier 3 — Speak
costs nerve- Contact your representative about one specific thing, in your own words
- File a public comment on a proposed federal rule during its comment window
- Give two minutes of public comment at a local meeting
- Submit a records request — FOIA federally, or your state's equivalent
Federal rulemaking comment periods are the highest-leverage, least-used lever an ordinary person has. Agencies are legally required to consider substantive comments, and most proposed rules receive very few.
Tier 4 — Organize
costs other people's time, which is why it is harder- Bring one other person to a meeting you already attend
- Start or sign a petition with a named decision-maker and a specific ask
- Join or form a neighborhood or issue group
- Help run a candidate forum, a voter-registration table, or a know-your-rights session
Tier 5 — Serve
costs a term- Work an election as a poll worker or judge
- Sit on a local board or commission — most have unfilled seats
- Serve when called for jury duty
- Run for a local office
Local boards and commissions are the least-contested public service in the country. Vacancy is the norm, not the exception, and a seat on one is often available for asking.
This log is yours alone. Outpost does not check any of it, nothing is uploaded, and no part of the app treats it as proof of anything. It is a record you keep because civic work otherwise leaves nothing behind.
Sharing, and competing
Shareable as a card the holder chooses to paste somewhere. There is no directory, no browse, no search by name, and no server holding any of it. Competition happens inside circles you and your friends create, and nowhere else — there is no ranking of citizens, and no part of Outpost is unlocked by any of this.