# The household book

> Write down what a sitter or a grandparent asks for, copy it in one tap, keep a password hidden, and give a sitter a read-only link. The moments your family kept sit beside it.

The household book is the page a sitter, a grandparent or a new partner needs:
the wifi, which bin goes out when, the doctor, the school and the sitter's
number. It lives in a family workspace at **Household book**, under **Home** in
the sidebar, and you can reach it from **More** on the family page and from
search.

## Before you have written anything

An empty book shows an example of a filled one, labeled **Example: what your
book looks like**: a made-up family's wifi (with the password hidden), bin
days, doctor, school and sitter, and a few kept moments, laid out the way
yours will be. It is faded and nothing in it can be pressed. It is never saved
to your workspace. Press **Add the wifi first** to start your
own book; the example goes away as soon as anything real is in it, a fact, a
kept moment or a moment waiting for **Keep**.

## What goes in it

The book has two shelves.

- **The house:** the wifi, the bins, and anything else about the house, like
  where the spare key is.
- **People who help:** the doctor, the school and the sitter.

Each entry has a name ("Dr. Okafor, Elm Street Pediatrics"), the thing to copy
(a phone number, the wifi password) and an optional note ("Recycling Tuesdays,
out by 7 am"). **Copy** beside an entry copies the thing to
copy, so nobody has to type a phone number off a screen.

1. Press **Add to the book**.
2. Pick what it is, give it a name, and fill in the thing to copy.
3. Tick **Hide it until someone taps Show** for a password. A wifi entry starts
   hidden.

Press the pencil beside an entry to change it or remove it. Grown-ups write in
the book; a child reads it and is offered no buttons. The book works offline
like the rest of the app.

## The moments

Beside the facts are the moments your family has kept: a birthday, a first
night in a tent, the day the shed was finished. Each one is a card with its
drawing and its date. Margin Intelligence suggests moments on Sundays, and you
choose **Keep** or **Skip**. **Remove** takes a moment out, and the toast's
**Put back** brings it back. A year ago today comes back here on its day, and
on the wall display.

The companion's room keeps a door to the book with the newest moment on it.

## Giving a sitter a link

Press **Give a sitter a link** and make a view-only link. The
person you send it to does not need The Margin. They see the facts and nothing
else. The moments your family kept stay off the link, because a moment's title
can name a child.

Passwords stay hidden on the link unless you tick **Include the hidden facts,
like the wifi password**. Changing that keeps the same link, so the address you
already sent still works. **Stop the link** turns it off for everyone who has
it. Only a grown-up can make or change the link. The phone app has the same
link on the book's screen, where it goes straight to the share sheet.

## With an assistant

Margin Intelligence and any connected assistant can read and write the book
with `list_household_facts`, `set_household_fact` and `remove_household_fact`.
A hidden value is masked in what the assistant reads unless it asks for it on
purpose, and a child's assistant cannot change the book.

> **On the phone:** The phone app has the book too: open it from the family page.


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Section: Together. Checked against the running product on October 26, 2026.
Web page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/the-household-book. Every docs page: https://themarginapp.com/docs/llms.txt