How Hands works

A small system, used carefully.

Hands has three moving parts: listings, vouches, and the token ledger. Each is intentionally narrow. The constraint is the point.

Five kinds of listing

Everything posted to Hands is a listing — a small structured post of exactly one of these five types. Choosing the type at post time tells the rest of the system how to handle it.

Offer

Something you have to give, lend, or share. Materials, tools, time-limited surplus.

Example: "200sf of reclaimed oak flooring, Brooklyn, pickup by 6/1."

Request

Something you need — material, tool, hands, or attention.

Example: "Need a structural look at a sagging porch beam, Crown Heights, free or trade."

Skill offered

Time, expertise, or labor you're willing to give. Always bounded by hours.

Example: "Offering 4 hrs of CAD time for a tenant association's permit application."

Skill needed

A task someone needs done. Specific — a licensed architect to stamp a permit, not "a designer in general."

Example: "Need a licensed architect to stamp a chairlift permit, Portland."

Call to action

A gathering, build day, repair clinic, design clinic, skill-share. The one listing type that always has a date — and expires after it.

Example: "Sat 6/15, 9am: deck rebuild at 211 Putnam Ave, 6 hands needed."

Vouching, not gatekeeping

Anyone can browse Hands. To post or claim a listing, a verified neighbor vouches you in — they write a short note attesting that they know you. The vouch isn't an endorsement of your worth; it's a thread of social accountability. One vouch is enough in v1.

If you don't have anyone on Hands yet

Three equity paths exist from day one:

• Shelter ZIP. If you're at one of Portland's supportive-housing sites — Transition Projects, JOIN, p:ear, Right 2 Dream Too — sign up using that ZIP. It's on a small allowlist and treated the same as a residential ZIP.
• Partner-organization attestation. A verified partner org — Portland Tenants United, Community Alliance of Tenants, Street Roots — can attest to one of their members in lieu of a peer vouch.
• No fixed address. Sign up with no ZIP at all. A peer voucher then attests to your general area of activity ("operates in Portland metro") rather than a specific ZIP. Profile shows "Portland area (vouch-attested)" instead of a five-digit number.

One hour, one token

Skill exchanges — skill offered and skill needed listings — move tokens. A carpenter's hour and a tenant-advocate's hour earn the same token. Edgar Cahn's argument for time-banking, more or less: refusing to import the market's hierarchy of labor value.

Materials and call-to-action listings — offers, requests, build days — move freely as gifts. No token changes hands. The ledger is for labor, not for stuff.

You start at zero tokens. You can go negative — to receive help on day one without already having banked hours — to a soft floor of -10 and a hard floor of -20. Then you have to earn before you spend more. This is the LETS model. It's older than time-banking and is the reason people who most need help can use the platform first.

Settlement and trust

When a skill listing is claimed and the work is done, both parties confirm completion. Only then do tokens move on the ledger. No silent settlement, no automatic confirmation timers in v1. If you and the person you traded with disagree, it goes to a moderator.

Once your token balance exceeds 20, two-factor authentication becomes required on your account. Anyone can browse without 2FA; anyone can sign up without 2FA; you only have to set it up when there's real value on the line. TOTP (authenticator app), recovery codes (printable), or email-based one-time codes — pick the one that fits your situation.

What we're explicitly NOT doing in v1

• Threaded comments on listings (Phase 2)
• Native events with RSVP / calendar export (Phase 3 — call-to-action listings cover the slice)
• Real-time chat or DMs (Phase 4 or never — Signal exists)
• Geographic radius search, map view (Phase 3+)
• Reputation, karma, voting (rejected permanently — handoffs-completed counter is the only quantified-self mechanic)
• Donations / payments routed through Hands (Phase 4)
• Mobile apps (responsive web, possibly forever)
• Material listings priced in tokens (rejected — materials stay gift)
• Geographic expansion beyond Portland (Phase 2+, once Portland reaches critical mass)

The full design specification, the implementation plan, and the decision log are all public in the project repository.