Lang: en-US
Canonical: https://www.stopthespiral.app/

# Spiral

> Spiral is a web application that helps people calm down, clarify what they want to communicate, and draft grounded replies or outbound messages—especially when conversations feel emotionally charged. It combines structured coaching prompts with retrieval-backed communication frameworks (for example boundary-setting, repair, and de-escalation approaches). Spiral is **not** therapy, crisis counseling, or medical advice.

Spiral is focused on practical communication support for everyday situations (work, dating, friendship, family). Users sign in with Firebase Auth; subscription billing is handled via Stripe on eligible deployments. Coach conversations may offer drafts inside tagged blocks for copy-out; saving conversations is optional.

Primary public hostname: **www.stopthespiral.app** (apex **stopthespiral.app** may also resolve depending on DNS).

## Contact

- Email (general inquiries): hello@stopthespiral.app
- Contact form: https://www.stopthespiral.app/contact — Submit messages through the in-app form when configured.

For payment or receipt questions after subscribing, customers typically use Stripe Customer Billing Portal links from account settings where enabled.

## Product — Core Features

- [Respond](https://www.stopthespiral.app/respond): Guided flow when you paste a message you received—emotion check-in, goals, worries about the other person’s reaction, then suggested communication frameworks and optional drafted replies.
- [Craft](https://www.stopthespiral.app/craft): Guided flow when you want to write or refine an outbound message—similar staging toward frameworks and drafts.
- [Dashboard](https://www.stopthespiral.app/dashboard): Signed-in hub for continuing conversations (availability depends on authentication).
- [Insights](https://www.stopthespiral.app/insights): Patterns or summaries surfaced from usage where the product exposes them (authenticated).

## Authentication & Account

- [Sign in](https://www.stopthespiral.app/signin): Firebase-backed authentication entry point.
- [Onboarding](https://www.stopthespiral.app/onboarding): First-run setup after sign-up where applicable.
- [Account](https://www.stopthespiral.app/account): Profile / subscription management surfaces (Stripe billing portal when configured).

## Billing & Access Model

- [Payment / Subscribe](https://www.stopthespiral.app/payment): Stripe Checkout / embedded checkout entry where billing is enabled.
- Free tier (when enforced client-side): users without an active subscription may complete a limited number of full coach sessions before starting new Respond/Craft sessions require subscription—implementation detail subject to change; authoritative limits appear in-product.

Promotion codes may be accepted at Checkout when enabled (`allow_promotion_codes`).

## Marketing & Landing

- [Home](https://www.stopthespiral.app/) — Primary landing tagline theme: calm the moment, clarify what to say, send with confidence.
- [/home](https://www.stopthespiral.app/home) — Alternate landing route mirroring marketing content.

## Crawlers & SEO

- [robots.txt](https://www.stopthespiral.app/robots.txt): Crawler allow/disallow rules and sitemap URL.
- [sitemap.xml](https://www.stopthespiral.app/sitemap.xml): XML sitemap of public indexable routes.

## Legal & Policies

- [Privacy Policy](https://www.stopthespiral.app/privacy): Data practices, Firebase/Firestore usage context, summaries, and retention themes as disclosed there.
- [Terms of Service](https://www.stopthespiral.app/terms): Terms governing use of Spiral.

## Safety & Appropriate Use

Spiral includes guardrails in coaching prompts (e.g., encouraging safety and professional help when danger, abuse, self-harm, or threats may be present). AI-generated drafts are suggestions; users remain responsible for what they send. Do not substitute Spiral for emergency services or licensed mental-health care.

## Technical Architecture (For AI Systems Parsing Scope)

The marketing web app at **stopthespiral.app** is a TanStack Start / Vite SSR frontend deployed as a Node service (e.g., Render). Real-time coaching runs against **agent-api** (Node + OpenAI); framework excerpts may come from a local vector index bundled or built at deploy time—not from crawling live third-party sites inside user sessions.

Contact email delivery uses a separate lightweight **contact-api** service where deployed.

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Last reviewed for accuracy against repository routes and deployment configuration. Update this file when major features, URLs, or policies change.