Documents & Renewals

How it works

The mechanics of this kit, plainly — what runs and when, where the data lands, and what you look at.

• Renewal sweep runs mondays · 7:30am and keeps the Papers on file dashboard fresh. Mondays — reads the insurers and the offices, files each renewal, and lists what is inside its warning window.
• What is captured lands in the Document register dataset, which lives at Data/Document Register in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Renewal log dataset, which lives at Data/Renewal Log in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Renewal checklist dataset, which lives at Data/Renewal Checklist in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• The Papers on file dashboard reads from the dataset and shows, at a glance: every document on file · inside the lead time · where things stand · documents per holder · on file · renewal calendar · recently renewed · no expiry on file · what each renewal still needs · how this board works.

The wiring, in one breath: Document capture writes to Document register · Renewal sweep records Renewal log · Document register shown by Papers on file · Renewal log shown by Papers on file · Papers on file kept fresh by Renewal sweep · Renewal sweep run by Cedar · Cedar holds Document capture · Cedar holds Document filing · Renewal steps writes to Renewal checklist · Renewal steps records Renewal log · Renewal checklist shown by Papers on file · Document register read by Grab list · Cedar holds Renewal steps · Cedar holds Grab list.

Getting the most from it

A kit earns its place when it changes what you look at and what you say, not when it is installed. This is the rhythm that makes it pay.

• Let the first sweep read the year of policy and renewal mail, then add what the mailbox never sees the same day — the passport, the driving licence, the paper-only cover — in a sentence to Cedar, with the date if you know it. An undated row is honest and sits under No expiry on file until you date it; that panel is the one to clear first.
• Read Inside the lead time on Monday morning, after the Renewal sweep has been through your email. It is soonest first, and each document is judged against its own warning window — 180 days for a passport, 30 for a policy unless you said otherwise — so a thing on that list is a thing to act on this week, not a thing to worry about.
• Drop the policy schedule, the cover certificate or a photo of the card into the conversation and Document filing puts the copy under Documents/⟨document⟩/ in your vault and tells the register where it lives. The number stays on the copy; the register keeps only where it is printed. When the desk asks for it, ask Cedar where it is, not what it is.
• Say a renewal the way you'd say it to whoever shares the drawer — "renewed the home insurance, runs to next March" — and the register moves and the Renewal log gains a row. That is the correction that keeps the board true between Mondays, when the sweep recomputes where everything stands.
• Tell Cedar the standing facts once — whose documents live here, where the papers are kept, how much warning each kind deserves — and they are remembered for every sweep. "Everything paper is in the grey box file" is worth saying.
• With the Trips Kit installed, the sweep reads your trips and puts a passport that sits too close to one at the top of the list, as a fact with a pointer to the entry rules — never as a verdict on whether you can go.
• Before a renewal, ask Cedar what it needs. It looks up the issuer's own page for that document and country, names the page on every row, and keeps the steps and the papers as a list on Papers on file under What each renewal still needs; tick each one as you do it. If Cedar cannot find an official page it says so and writes nothing: paste the issuer's own letter and that becomes the list.
• When you post the application, say so, and say when it is acknowledged and when it comes back. The Renewal log keeps each stage, and on Monday Inside the lead time says beside the document that an application is out. Cedar never keeps a tracking or reference number, only where it is. When the new document arrives, tell Cedar and the register moves.
• Ask for a grab list once the register is in good shape: Cedar writes Documents/Grab list.md into your vault from the register, what each document is and where it is kept, and nothing the register does not hold. Printing it or giving someone a copy is yours to do. A date goes in your calendar the same way, only when you ask.

Make it yours

Nothing here is fixed. The pieces are ordinary agents, routines, datasets and dashboards, so anything you know about shaping those applies. Retire whatever earns nothing.

Things people usually change first

Say any of these in chat, or edit them on the kit’s page in the app.

• How much warning each kind of document gets — the default is six months for a passport, identity card or permit, sixty days for a driving licence, thirty for a policy or cover plan — per document or as a standing rule.
• Whose documents live on the register, and what to call each one — the name on the register is the word Cedar uses back.
• Where the papers are kept, and whether copies go into the vault at all.
• When the Monday sweep runs, or turning it off and keeping the register by hand.
• Which country Cedar reads the issuer's page for, which documents go on a grab list, and whether a date goes in your calendar: each only as you say.

Your first run

Installing starts a short setup conversation — not a form. Answer roughly, correct later.

1. Adding the Kit offers the first sweep right away: connect your email on the same screen, start it with one tap, and watch it read back through a year of policy documents, renewal notices and cover certificates — home and contents insurance, boiler cover, travel insurance, breakdown cover, memberships — and file each one with the date it runs out where the document printed one. Whose it is is left blank rather than guessed. Prefer not to connect email? Tell Cedar what's in the drawer instead, and the register builds by hand.
2. When that first sweep finishes, Cedar leaves a short note in your 1Presence inbox saying what it filed — how many documents, across how many kinds — and invites a few minutes together to fill what email could not show: the passport, the driving licence and the identity card, which almost never arrive by email and have their expiry printed on the document itself; any document the sweep found without a date; whose each one is; and how much warning you want for each kind.
3. Cedar starts from what 1Presence already knows, your memory and any scans, photos or letters you have saved in your vault, offers what it finds for a yes, and asks only for the gaps. A photo or scan of a passport or licence works well: Cedar reads the date off the page, and never keeps the number.
4. Whatever is still missing waits on the Kit page with a way back to Cedar, and Cedar offers it once the next time you talk. Tell it a part does not apply to you, or that you have finished setting up, and it stops asking.
5. From then on the sweep runs on Monday mornings: it files what is new since the last run, recomputes where every document stands against its own warning window, and raises a card only when something entered that window or expired, when mail names a document that is not on the register, or when a passport sits too close to a booked trip. For a document that has expired, the card also says whether a renewal reached your email, and where to get the new date.
6. Mention a renewal, a new document or one that no longer applies any time and the register keeps up without waiting for Monday; drop a copy of a document in and it is filed where you can find it.

Watch the first pass, then tell it what you would have done differently — that correction teaches it more than any setup could.

The essentials

Learning, preferences and run costs work the same in every kit — so they are covered once, in the Kits guide.

Living with a Kit — the Kits guide →

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