Household Roles & Permissions — A Major Upgrade
Choresly now includes a full household role system with built-in and custom roles, server-enforced permissions, and smarter task visibility — giving families real control without added complexity.
Household Roles & Permissions — A Major Upgrade
We’ve just rolled out one of the biggest architectural upgrades to Choresly so far.
Households now have a powerful, flexible role system that gives you precise control over who can see and do what — while keeping everything simple and predictable.
👑 Introducing the Owner Role
Every household now has a single Owner.
- Automatically assigned to the household creator
- Cannot be removed or demoted by others
- Can transfer ownership if needed
This ensures there is always one ultimate authority in the household — no confusion, no power struggles.
🧑🤝🧑 Built-In Roles (Now Fully Defined)
Households now include six built-in roles:
- Owner
- Admin
- Member
- Teen
- Child
- Guest
Each role has carefully designed default permissions.
Child and Guest are now completely separate roles, each with behaviour suited to real-world use cases like younger children or temporary helpers.
Built-in roles are locked.
They act as:
- Safe defaults
- Templates for custom roles
- Fallbacks for stability
🛠 Custom Role Builder
Admins and Owners can now create custom roles.
When creating a role:
- Choose a template (Member, Teen, Child, Guest, or Admin)
- Name the role
- Adjust a small set of permission toggles
This approach prevents:
- Blank or unsafe roles
- Accidental full-access configurations
- Permission gaps
The permission system is intentionally simple and flat — no complex hierarchies or confusing inheritance rules.
🔒 Stronger, Server-Enforced Permissions
This update wasn’t just cosmetic.
Permissions are now properly enforced at multiple levels:
- Task visibility is enforced at the database level
- All task mutations (create, edit, delete, complete) are validated server-side
- UI controls are hidden when users don’t have permission
If someone cannot create or delete tasks, those controls simply don’t appear.
👀 Smarter Task Visibility
Roles can now define whether a user:
- Sees all household tasks
- Or only sees tasks assigned to them
For roles with assigned-only visibility (like Child or Guest), users can still complete their own tasks — keeping the experience intuitive.
🏠 Clearer Household Management
Household settings are now handled more cleanly:
- Everyone can view the household settings page
- Only authorised roles can:
- Rename the household
- Regenerate invite codes
- Manage rooms
- Manage members
- Manage roles
This keeps things transparent while maintaining control.
🔄 Automatic Migration (No Action Needed)
Existing households were automatically upgraded:
- Previous Admin and Member roles were preserved
- Household creators were assigned the new Owner role
- All permissions were migrated safely
No setup changes required.
Why This Matters
This upgrade moves Choresly from a simple shared task list to a true household management system.
It lays the foundation for:
- More flexible family setups
- Safer multi-role households
- Cleaner long-term scaling
- Future advanced features
All without making the experience feel complicated.
As always, the goal is simple:
Make running a household feel organised — not overwhelming.