The ladder · every number the re-ask runs on

The ladder.

A question you miss comes back on a widening gap, and a question you get right can come back too, less often. This page is those gaps 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 comes back 5 more times, each after a longer gap.

One ladder, the same for everyone. A wrong answer opens a round for that topic; 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.

A ladder standing against a wall. The gaps between its rungs grow wider towards the top, and a pink question card hangs from the third rung.

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 leaves the schedule.
180
Return 5 · days
The last check. Answer it correctly and the topic is closed.

Right the first time

A question you get right in the coding agent, the web daily rep, the phone app or the workspace daily comes back too, if nothing in its topic is already scheduled. It comes back 3 times, using the gaps of returns 2 to 4 above. Answer the last one correctly and the question leaves the schedule, with no 180-day re-check. Miss it at any return and it starts over as a missed question, back in 2 days.

Right
Day 0
Return 1
Day 7
Return 2
Day 28
Return 3
Day 88
answer it and it leaves the schedule

One right answer, followed by correct answers every time it comes back.

What moves and what does not

Once a topic has a question scheduled, only that question served as a return moves the ladder: answering it correctly climbs, missing it drops. A fresh question you get right in that topic changes nothing, because a success before the due date says nothing about whether you still remember it later. A fresh question you get wrong in a topic 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. After a miss, return 5 is the last one: answer it correctly and the round closes. Answers you gave as a visitor, before you had an account, schedule only the questions you missed.

The only way to stop a topic 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 after a miss, before the topic 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. When more questions are due than the share allows, questions you missed come before questions you got right.
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
Every rep
Every rep asks whether you were sure before it grades you, until you turn it off. A wrong answer you were sure of is the one most worth asking again, so it is asked again sooner. Among right answers due on the same day, the one you were least sure of comes first. Being sure or unsure never changes the gaps.
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: every question, or off. 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.