Sessions (Library)¶

A session is a single guided activity in the Library tab. It can be a narrated audio track, a breathing exercise, or one of several short interactive exercises. Sessions are also what most Coach cards launch.

See The authoring model for the universal rules (parent + translations, status, slugs, validation, assets). This page covers what's specific to sessions.

Session card in the Library tab

Parent fields (language-independent)¶

You set these once on the session, regardless of language:

Field	What it means
Slug	Stable id, e.g. `body-scan-standard`. Permanent once published.
Template type	What kind of session this is — see the table below. Determines the content form and the player.
Category	One of: `sleep`, `focus`, `thoughts`, `social`, `understanding`, `relaxation`. Used for grouping/filtering.
Program week	1, 2, or 3 — which week of the program this belongs to.
Segment affinity	`acute`, `habituation`, or `both` — which user journey this suits.
Pain points	One or more of `sleep`, `concentration`, `emotional`, `social` — what it helps with.
Tier	`free` or `premium`. Premium sessions are gated behind the subscription.
Image	The session's artwork (an image asset). Shown on the Library card and player.

Translation fields (per language)¶

Field	What it means
Title	The session name shown on the card and player.
Content	The structured body — its shape depends on the template type (the form adapts). See below.
Why this works	2–3 short `heading` + `body` pairs explaining the evidence/rationale. Shown in the session detail.
Citation	Optional source reference.
Audio	The voice/audio track (an audio asset), for templates that have audio.
Transcript	The timed caption track for narrated audio — a list of `{timestamp, text}` lines. Powers the captions toggle in the audio player. Only audioGuided sessions show a transcript (the breathing screen is a pacer, not a caption view).
Duration	Filled from the audio length where there's audio; otherwise estimated from the content.

Template types¶

The template type decides the player and the shape of the content form.

Template	What the user does	Audio?	Notes
audioGuided	Listens to a narrated practice (e.g. body scan, PMR).	Voice track	Has a transcript (captions). Content is short copy (description + image alt text).
breathing	Follows a visual pacer ring + spoken cues for a breathing pattern.	Intro + loop + outro	Content holds the pattern (phases × seconds) and default round count. See "Breathing" below.
chipExercise	Taps through prompt "chips" — a quick guided micro-exercise.	No	Content holds the prompts/steps.
valuesSort	Sorts values cards to clarify what matters.	No	An ACT-style exercise.
experiment	Runs a short behavioural experiment over a set time.	No	Content holds the setup + a duration.
insight	Reads a short psychoeducation insight.	No	Content is the insight body.
reframe	Reframes an unhelpful thought.	No	A CBT-style exercise.
sentenceCompletion	Completes guided sentence stems.	No	Reflective writing prompts.

When you pick a template type, the content form changes to match it, and the save-time check (session-content-validate) ensures the content fits that template. If you change a session's template type, re-check the content matches the new template — the form will tell you if it doesn't.

audioGuided content is intentionally light (just description + image alt) — the real "content" is the audio + transcript. The other templates carry their structure in the content form.

Breathing sessions in particular¶

A breathing session's content holds a pattern — a list of phases, each with a number of seconds:

inhale — breathe in
hold_full — hold with full lungs
exhale — breathe out
hold_empty — hold with empty lungs

…plus a default number of rounds. For example, the classic 4-7-8 is inhale 4s → hold_full 7s → exhale 8s; box breathing is inhale 4 → hold_full 4 → exhale 4 → hold_empty 4.

A breathing session has three audio pieces (produced by the audio tooling, not hand-recorded for the test content): a spoken intro before the rounds, a looping pacing cue track during the rounds ("inhale / hold / exhale", per-language), and a spoken outro after. As an editor you mainly set the pattern, the title, and the why this works.

Breathing session content form

What blocks a save / publish¶

Content that doesn't match the template type.
A missing image, or an audio/image asset that doesn't resolve (blocks publish).
Renaming the slug while a translation is published.

Where it shows up¶

A card in the Library tab (artwork + title + duration), opening the matching player: the audio player (with captions) for audioGuided, the breathing pacer for breathing, or the interactive screen for the exercise templates. Coach session_cards also launch sessions by slug — see Coach Conversations.