Some moments don't fit a Vault yet. A photo you want to keep but haven't decided who it's for. A note you'd like to plant once a Vault exists for it. A quick capture you'll sort later. The Seed Packet is the brand-aligned home for those Seeds — un-planted, unsealed, waiting patiently. It replaces the generic "drafts" / "inbox" / "saved-for-later" pattern with a vessel that fits how DandyLine actually works: capture without urgency, decide when you're ready.
Planting a Seed in DandyLine asks a Gardener to make several decisions in one moment:
That's the right amount of intention once a Gardener has decided. But it's friction at the moment of inspiration. The instinct “I want to keep this” arrives in seconds; the answers to those five questions sometimes take days.
The Seed Packet preserves the instinct without demanding the answers. Capture now, decide later. The brand promise of patience extends inward — even the Gardener gets to be patient with themselves.
Every other capture app has some version of this: Apple Notes' “Quick Note,” Notion's “Inbox,” Bear's “Drafts,” Day One's “Today.” They all default to a generic productivity vocabulary. DandyLine's version sits inside the brand world — it's a Packet, not a folder. It holds Seeds, not files. The Gardener tucks Seeds in; they don't “save” them.
Rationale locked · 2026-05-02A Seed in a Packet sits before the canonical lifecycle in product-seeds.html. It is pre-Sealed — the planting ritual has not happened yet.
This is a new lifecycle state introduced with Seed Packet. A Seed in this state has:
When a Gardener moves a Seed from the Packet into a Vault (via the Plant flow), the Seed exits the pre-Sealed state and enters the standard Sealed → Bloomed → Drifting → Composting → Released lifecycle. The Seed Packet is not a stop on that journey — it's an entrance ramp before it.
Pre-Sealed Seeds are content the Gardener has committed to keeping but hasn't committed to a recipient or timeline. They should be encrypted at rest the same way Sealed Seeds are. The “one quiet check” (content moderation pre-encrypt) should still run at capture, before the Seed enters the Packet — so a Seed never sits in the Packet unscanned.
product-seeds.html to add the pre-Sealed state to the canonical lifecycle diagram. Position: before Sealed. Visual treatment: TBD (likely subdued, neutral — not yet given a vault color since it has no Vault).
Four real moments where a Gardener reaches for the Packet instead of the full planting ritual:
Across all four: the Gardener's energy at capture is different from their energy at planting. The Packet honors both.
Lives in the Plant action's neighborhood — visible without being loud. Conceptually a small pouch or paper packet (the kind real seeds come in). Final visual is a design pass — flagged in Open Questions.
A small numerical indicator shows how many Seeds are tucked inside (e.g., Packet · 7). This is informational, never alarming. No red dot, no urgency badge.
Opening the Packet reveals an un-planted Seed list, sorted most-recent-first. Each row shows:
The Gardener can also delete a Seed directly from the Packet if they decide not to keep it after all (with the same compost / release ritual that applies elsewhere — never “Trash,” never “Delete” in raw form).
Empty state copy when the Packet has no Seeds: “Nothing tucked away right now. Capture something when the moment comes — we'll hold it for you.”
Filled state header: “7 Seeds waiting to be planted.” Never “7 unfiled items.” Never “You have 7 drafts.”
Three ways a Seed reaches the Packet:
The Plant FAB opens the standard Plant flow. At the top of that flow, alongside the Vault picker, an alternate path: “Not ready to decide? Tuck it in your Packet.” One tap drops the captured content into the Packet without forcing a Vault choice.
If a Gardener starts the Plant flow but realizes mid-decision they don't have an answer (or a Vault, or a recipient), they can step out of the flow into the Packet without losing the captured content. The escape hatch is always available — never punishing the Gardener for indecision.
The Packet is also accessible from the Gardener Menu (settings hub) and from the Garden Almanac, where a Gardener can browse all their un-planted Seeds at once. This is the slower path — for when the Gardener returns specifically to sort.
ux-planting-flow.html to document the “Plant later” branch and the “Save to Packet” escape hatch as canonical paths through the planting flow.
The Weather Hub (HW#41) is where DandyLine surfaces all time-sensitive signals to the Gardener. The Seed Packet is one of those signal sources — but a quiet one.
Tone discipline: every Weather prompt about the Packet must read as an invitation, not a chore. The Gardener should never feel scolded for having Seeds in there. If the brand voice for Weather drifts toward productivity-app urgency, the Packet prompts will be the canary.
Each Weather item about the Packet has an action button that takes the Gardener directly into the Packet view. Per HW#41 spec, this is consistent with how all Weather signals work — they don't just inform, they navigate.
The Packet stores real content — photos, video, voice. It costs storage. The honest framing of how the Packet behaves on storage and limits is still in development. Working principles:
QUESTIONS-FROM-ASHLEY.md.)QUESTIONS-FROM-ASHLEY.md). Press doesn't quite apply to un-planted Seeds though — needs a thought pass on what the storage-cap moment looks like for un-planted content.Seed Packet introduces or modifies behavior on these existing surfaces:
product-seeds.html — add the pre-Sealed lifecycle state to the canonical diagram and state listux-planting-flow.html — document the “Plant later” branch and “Save to Packet” escape hatch as canonical pathsbrand-guide.html — Seed Packet vocab note ✅ added 2026-05-02CLAUDE.md — vocab table updated with Seed Packet ✅ added 2026-05-02Tracked in HW#201. Surfaced here so they're visible alongside the spec they affect:
brand-icon.js.
product-seeds.html is updated.
QUESTIONS-FROM-ASHLEY.md (Josh storage consult).