Guide › Start here
Welcome to the Guide
What Latch is, how to play it, how to make it yours, and where it is going. Everything here is served by your own instance.
Latch is a solo lock game about getting better — a Handler, a wheel, training, the habits you are building, and a play log that remembers everything honestly. This guide is the manual. It ships inside the app, so it is always the guide for the version you are running (the footer shows which).
Before anything else
Latch is an adult game about chastity and pup headspace. It never controls a physical device. You always hold the key. The app's emergency key exists so that stopping is one tap away, and using it is never a failure of the game — it is the game working. Read The spirit of the game before your first lock.
If you have five minutes
- Your first lock — cage up, do today's reflection, spin once, unlock.
- Playing day to day — the dashboard, the clock, undo, the retroactive log.
- Customise your experience — name your Handler, tune the rules, edit the wheel.
The map
| Section | What is in it |
|---|---|
| Start here | What Latch is · The spirit of the game · Your first lock |
| Playing | Day to day · Progress, charts and insight · Photos, stamps and recap cards |
| Modules | How modules work · The Handler · Wheel of Fortune · Training · Health · Trance · Habits · Kit · Playsets and events |
| Customise | Settings, prompts, segments, stamps |
| Data | Export and backup · Privacy and what never leaves |
| Self-hosting | Install · API and Shortcuts · Troubleshooting |
| Project | Roadmap · Packs — federated Latch · Feedback and issues · Free and open source |
Three things to know
- The clock is derived, never stored. Every lock, adjustment, freeze and undo is an event in an append-only log; the time remaining is computed from that log each time you look. Nothing you do in a browser can quietly change the truth.
- Reflection is part of the game, not a feature of it. The Handler expects a written or spoken reflection every day you are locked, and check-ins on a cadence. Missing one is an event too. See The Handler.
- Nothing leaves the box. No accounts, no cloud, no analytics, no fonts or scripts from a CDN — this guide included. The core makes zero outbound calls; a module that can (today, only calendar feeds) says so before you switch it on. Sharing is something you do on purpose with a file you exported. See Privacy.
- The work is the game. Write. Be honest. Do the training, the workout, the stretch, the practice — because you are a good boy and your Handler wants you to be the best boy you can be. See The spirit of the game.
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