Every task you tick in Skillion moves four things at once: it spends energy, pays XP, raises your skills and extends your streak. That is the engine of the app. And it is what makes a finished task feel like something earned, not something crossed off.
I write that code. I sat down to count how many rules run when you tick a task and got eleven. This article is that line-up, with the numbers exactly as they sit in the code today.
A note on vocabulary. In the app, what you do is called a task. Skills are the bars that go up. And a task only becomes a “mission” when the Task of destiny hands it to you.
1 · Energy: 100 points a day
You start every day with 100 energy points. They refill at six in the morning.
Each task spends energy when you complete it, not when you create it. How much is up to you when you create it: 1 point by default, and you can raise it up to 50.
A task can also give energy back. Sleep, a nap, a walk: give them a negative cost and the bar goes up when you tick them.
If you try to complete a task and you have no energy left, the app does not tick it. It suggests creating a rest task that gives you points back.
Energy pays nothing. It only forces a choice. With 100 points and tasks that cost 20, no more than five fit in a day. That is its job: to give the day a ceiling.
2 · Task XP: difficulty times luck
When you create a task you give it a difficulty. Each difficulty has a fixed base XP:
| Difficulty | Base XP |
|---|---|
| Very easy or easy | 5 |
| Medium | 10 |
| Hard | 15 |
| Very hard | 20 |
On top of the base XP a luck factor applies. It is a random number between 0.8 and 1.7. A medium task can pay 8 points one day and 17 the next.
The animation shows it. If the factor lands below 0.95 it says “Low roll”. Above 1.1, “Lucky!”. From 1.5 up, “CRITICAL!”.
Why random? Because the brain responds more to the reward it does not expect. Luigy explains it in the Task of destiny article.
3 · Points per skill: you set them
Besides task XP, each task splits points across your skills. Those points do not depend on difficulty or luck. You type them, skill by skill, when you create the task. The default is 10.
If filling all this in feels like a chore, you type the title and tap “Configure with magic”. The AI proposes difficulty, energy, skills and repetition, and you correct whatever you want. It is one of the things Premium brings.
They can be negative. A task can add 15 to Rest and take 10 from Productivity. It is the way to log something you do that costs you somewhere else. The skill that loses points can drop a level.
Each skill has its own level scale. From 1 to 2 takes 100 points. From 2 to 3, 150. From 3 to 4, 250. From 4 to 5, 360. From there, 100 more per level. There is no level cap.
4 · Coins: luck bites less
Each task also pays coins. How many is up to you when you create it; the default is 10.
Here the luck factor only counts at 30%. A 10-coin task pays between 9 and 12. That keeps the shop from inflating. Levelling up your character also pays between 20 and 100 coins.
Coins are spent in the shop. A health potion costs 50. Avatar clothes, 1000. And you can create your own rewards at whatever price you want: “an evening of video games, 200 coins”. Buying it is redeeming it.
5 · The streak and its milestones
Each repeating task has its streak: consecutive days on which you completed it. Completing it twice on the same day counts as one day.
There are six milestones: 3, 7, 14, 30, 60 and 100 days. Each milestone pays a bonus of 5 XP per day of streak: 15 points at 3 days, 35 at 7, 150 at 30, 500 at 100. The bonus goes to the main skill of the task.
It is small on purpose. A 40 XP task done seven days in a row pays 280 XP in tasks and 35 in bonus. The comment in the code puts it like this: the streak is the garnish, not the meal.
If you miss the task one day, the counter goes back to zero. And nothing else happens: XP and level are untouched. That is why Skillion needs no shields and no streak freezes.
6 · What happens if you skip it
If a task reaches its deadline without being completed, it becomes expired. By default that is all. No XP lost, no health lost.
You can turn on a penalty task by task. If you do and the task expires, you lose 5 health points and half the XP it paid to each skill. If health reaches zero, you drop a level and health refills.
When you open the app after a day with expired tasks, a list appears: “Tasks Expired. While you were away”. From there you can mark as done yesterday the one you did do, or skip the rest with no penalty.
Penalties are off by default on purpose. There is a 1999 review of rewards and punishments: the more controlling the system, the more it replaces your reason with its own.
7 · Notifications: one a day at most
Skillion sends at most one smart notification a day. It is a fixed cap in the code. Fixed-time reminders you set yourself are separate.
There are three kinds. Streak in danger: a streak of 3 days or more and fewer than six hours before midnight. Stalled skill: five days without points. And if you stop opening the app: a nudge at 3, 7 and 14 days. After that, silence.
From 22:00 to 08:00 nothing sounds, except streak in danger, which moves up to ten. The three kinds switch off separately in Settings.
8 · All together
You tick a task. It spends energy from your 100 points for the day. It pays XP by difficulty, with its luck roll. It splits the points you set across your skills. It adds a day to the streak and, on a milestone, pays the bonus.
And if you miss a day, you lose nothing unless you asked for it. That is the whole engine, and every number is in today’s code.
If the code changes, the article changes.