Your steps.
Your information.

Your account

You can create a Steps for Them account using your email, display name, and password. No ChatGPT account is required. We store a salted password hash, a hash of your account recovery code, and hashed session tokens; we do not store your password or recovery code in readable form. Your email is not displayed on challenge pages. Sessions use secure, HTTP-only cookies that last up to one year and renew while you use the app. You normally stay signed in on the same device. Clearing browser data, private browsing, or device/browser policies can still end a session. Sign-out revokes the current session; account recovery revokes all sessions and replaces the recovery code. Save your recovery code safely: email-based password reset is not configured.

To limit automated sign-in attempts, we store short-lived hashed rate-limit keys derived from your email or connection IP address. These expire after 15 minutes and are periodically removed. Existing challenge ownership can be preserved when a visitor with an authenticated legacy session registers the same email; signing in with ChatGPT is not required for new accounts.

Your challenge page

Your chosen public display name, challenge title, story, goal, dates, and daily walking totals appear on your challenge page. Challenge organizers can see the display names and pledge amounts of their supporters. The site and shared challenge pages can be viewed without an account. You must sign in to create a challenge, submit activity, or save a pledge. Screenshots and prayer check-ins remain restricted to the challenge owner.

Friends challenges

When you create or join a friends challenge, your display name, walking goal, daily-log count, walking totals, and personal challenge link appear on the shared group page. Anyone with its invitation link can view the group and join with a free account while the challenge is open. Members share challenge dates, time zone, and daily thoughts; each chooses a personal movement goal. Your screenshots, email, and prayer check-ins are not shown on the group page. One account can have one personal walk per group. The combined group total includes each member’s logs once; optional pledges stay attached to individual walks. Group membership cannot yet be removed through self-service.

Optional prayer prompts and check-ins

You can read the prayer prompts without uploading steps or making a pledge. During your challenge, you can choose to save a daily pause-and-pray check-in. We store only the challenge, calendar date, and time of that check-in. Your prayer check-in dates, completion status, and total are visible only to you, not to supporters or other visitors. We do not ask you to record the content of your prayers.

Reflections are original content written for this app, inspired by the listed Scripture references. They are not presented as official Them Before Us devotional materials. There is no step minimum or payment requirement to read or use them.

Your optional screenshots

Screenshots are stored privately and can only be retrieved through an authenticated endpoint by the challenge owner. They are not included on public-facing pages. Before uploading, crop out unrelated information, including other health metrics, notifications, names, and location. We accept PNG, JPG, and WebP files up to 8 MB.

We do not connect to your health data, track your location, or automatically extract numbers from screenshots. You enter and confirm each daily total. These are participant-confirmed submissions, not independently verified fitness records. Each day and screenshot can count only once per challenge. Choose miles or steps for a given day; the same walk must not be logged twice. Miles may have up to three decimal places. For this challenge, 1 mile and 3,000 steps each count as 1 unit; this is a scoring rule, not a physical conversion. Mixed daily logs combine toward the goal and complete pledge units.

Community movement totals

The public community counter shows aggregate steps, miles, participant counts, and walking units. It does not include account names, emails, screenshots, or prayer data. Each person’s earliest submitted daily total counts once across challenges; reused screenshots count once per person. Miles are reported separately from actual steps. These are participant-confirmed records, not independently verified activity.

Challenge choices and daily logs

Guided challenges include 7, 14, 21, 30, or 40 days of thoughts and walking logs. New challenges require a log for each calendar day plus the participant’s chosen movement goal to be marked complete. A rest day can be logged as zero. The 40-day theme is a symbolic reflection on the roughly 40 weeks of pregnancy; it does not provide medical development facts or prescribe exercise during pregnancy. Existing custom challenges retain their original completion rules.

Optional giving

Giving is off by default. Challenge owners may enable it at creation or later. You may complete a step challenge without money, supporters, or payment details. Turning optional giving off preserves any existing pledge intentions but stops new or changed pledges.

If giving is enabled, you or your supporters choose an amount per complete cumulative walking unit (1 mile or 3,000 steps) and a maximum contribution. Incomplete walking units carry over across days. Pledge estimates include all submitted challenge walking units, including activity completed before a pledge was saved. Card-backed pledges are not active yet. When enabled, card details will be entered directly with Stripe; this app stores Stripe reference IDs, the authorized rate and maximum, consent timing, and payment status. It does not store card numbers or security codes. A saved pledge intention alone never authorizes a charge.

The official Them Before Us donation page is an external service with its own policies. Donations made there do not automatically update this app’s totals.

On your phone

You can add this app to your home screen. A connection is required to load your challenge and save activity. The offline screen never reports an unsaved walk as saved. The app does not cache private challenge pages, screenshots, or account responses for offline use.

Storage and early-access limits

Challenge records, prayer check-ins, and optional pledge intentions are stored in the app’s database; screenshots are stored in private object storage. Data remains stored until removed by the site operator. Self-service deletion, step correction, final screenshot review, payment collection, group administration, and organizational reporting are not yet available. Please avoid uploading information you do not want retained during testing.

About this project

Steps for Them is an early-access steps and mileage challenge app with thoughtful prompts, optional prayer, and optional giving being developed to support the mission of Them Before Us. Branding and mission references are drawn from their public website. This prototype does not establish an official partnership or authorize collection of donations on the organization’s behalf.