The ladder · every number the re-ask runs on

The ladder.

A question you miss comes back on a widening gap. This page is that gap in days, with every other number the schedule uses, so the privacy policy can describe the shape and you can check the arithmetic yourself.

01The gaps

Miss it once, and it gets 5 more chances to stick.

One ladder, the same for everyone. A wrong answer opens a round for that sub-skill; each correct return climbs one rung and lengthens the next gap; a wrong return drops one rung. The gap is counted in days from the answer that set it.

Missed
Day 0
Return 1
Day 2
Return 2
Day 9
Return 3
Day 30
Return 4
Day 90
Return 5
Day 270
answer it and the round closes

One miss, followed by correct answers every time it comes back. A second miss moves it one step back down.

2
Return 1 · days
After the miss. Usually the same question.
7
Return 2 · days
After the previous return was answered correctly.
21
Return 3 · days
After the previous return was answered correctly.
60
Return 4 · days
Answer this one correctly and the question retires.
180
Return 5 · days
The last check. Answer it correctly and the sub-skill is closed.

What moves and what does not

Only a question served as a return moves the ladder: answering it correctly climbs, missing it drops. A fresh question you get right changes nothing, because a success before the due date says nothing about whether it stuck. A fresh question you get wrong in a sub-skill that already has a round open brings the return forward, never later. A question you did not answer is not a miss; it is served again next time. Return 5 is the last one: answer it correctly and the round closes.

The only way to stop a sub-skill by hand is to mute it. Nothing here pauses a question on a miss count.

The count

Read from the code · never retyped

A schedule you can check is a schedule you can trust.

2Days until the first returnCounted from the day you missed it.
5Returns before a sub-skill closesEach one answered correctly, each gap longer than the last.
1 in 3The most of a day that can be returnsThe rest of the day is fresh questions.

02The other numbers

Everything else the schedule reads.

Each one is a fixed rule set by a person. None of them is fitted to you, and none of them changes without this page changing first.

Misses on a return
7 days at most
Missing a question that has come back moves it one rung down, and it returns within 7 days however long that rung's gap is.
Level-down
Once
On the second return of a round, and only once in that round, the question may come back one level easier where a question with the same answer exists at that level. Where none does, the same question returns at the same level. In this version that neighbour is looked for on the MCP server only.
Yield
2 misses in a row
A question you have missed 2 returns in a row waits behind every other due question until one is cleared. It never leaves the schedule and nothing pauses it.
Share of the day
1 in 3
Returns take at most one rep in 3 of a day's reps, rounded up, and never the last one: at least one question a day is fresh at every dose.
Team and Pro on the web
10 reps
A Team or Pro member has no daily cap on the web, so the share is taken of 10: at most 4 returns a day there.
Confidence prompt, now and then
Every 5
On the "ask now and then" setting the MCP server asks whether you were sure on the first rep of the day and every 5 reps after it. Off never asks; every time always does.
Question skip cutoff
20 percent
A question that roughly fewer than 20 percent of people at a level get right, over at least 30 people, is not brought back at that level. The fault is taken to be the question's, not yours.
Same answer, different question
7 characters
A different question counts as "the same thing a different way" only when it shares the correct answer, that answer is at least 7 characters, and it is not a bare number or a yes or no. Shorter answers match by accident.

03Where the numbers come from

Assembled from measured parts. Not measured on you.

The population

Every rung is transferred from two-session laboratory studies on facts and vocabulary, run on schoolchildren and undergraduates. There is no randomised trial of retrieval practice on programming, and no rung is measured for working engineers on procedural material at this dose.

The last rung

No study we rely on measured a gap beyond 168 days. The 180-day re-check sits past that: it is an extrapolation, not a measured optimum.

The best gap also scales with how long you want to remember something for, so a ladder tuned for one horizon is not the ladder for another. The evidence behind that, and the ratio it settles on, is on the dose.

When a number on this page changes, the date and version at the top change with it, and the privacy policy keeps pointing here rather than restating a day count.

04What the schedule reads

Your answers, and the calendar.

Two inputs. Everything above is arithmetic over them.

Atomic Reps does not use language models to process your answers. When you answer inside a coding agent, that agent's model processes your answer before sending it to Atomic Reps. How long you took is never read as a signal of confidence, effort or mood. The confidence prompt, where you say whether you were sure, is a setting you hold: off, now and then, or every time. The schedule ranks nobody against anyone; what it holds is visible to you, and on the workplace plans to no one else. Games, courses and the shared Slack channel never read it or move it.