A few things changed this week that make Lykewise more useful for the conversations that happen after you match.
The biggest one is the intensity slider. For kink and play questions, you can now indicate how strongly you are into something on a scale from light to extreme. Each category has its own labels -- impact play goes from "light tap" to "extreme," rope goes from "gentle" to "immobilizing," D/s goes from "playful" to "total." The slider appears when you answer yes or curious. When results come through, you see both your intensity and theirs for each match. This helps set expectations before a conversation. Someone saying yes to impact play at intensity 2 and someone saying yes at intensity 5 are having very different experiences.
Hard limits are now distinct from no. On kink and play questions, there is a Limit button alongside yes, curious, and no. A hard limit means "this is a firm boundary, not just a lack of interest." If both people mark the same question as a hard limit, it shows up as a confirmed boundary in the results -- a shared understanding that neither of you wants to go there. Hard limits are visually distinct from regular answers so there is no ambiguity.
Group sets let multiple people join the same set and answer independently. Create a group set, share the join link, and anyone who joins answers the same questions privately. The results page shows two things: the N-way intersection (what everyone in the group said yes to) and pairwise results with individual participants. Pairwise results still require mutual approval -- the group format does not bypass the consent model. This is useful for polycules, play parties, or any situation where you want to understand compatibility across a group.
Result annotations let you track your negotiation progress. Each match result has a status dropdown: discussed, planned, or done. These are personal -- only you see your annotations. There is also a "Copy as checklist" button that generates a formatted text checklist from your results, organized by category, with status indicators. Paste it into a message, a shared document, or wherever you do your planning.
Trusted people enable auto-approve. After viewing results with someone, you can mark them as trusted. If they also trust you, future sets between the two of you will auto-approve and release results as soon as both of you finish answering. Trust is bidirectional -- one-sided trust has no effect. This is designed for long-term partners where the approval step is unnecessary friction. You can manage your trusted list from the dashboard and remove anyone at any time.
Set archiving lets you hide completed sets from your dashboard without deleting anything. Archived sets are dimmed and sorted to the bottom. Importantly, archived sets are exempt from the 90-day data retention cleanup, so your results are preserved as long as you want them.
Shorter identity codes make sharing easier. New accounts get 8-character codes (XXXX-XXXX) instead of 12. They are easier to say out loud, fit on name tags, and still have more than enough uniqueness. Old 12-character codes continue to work everywhere.
The data export now comes in two formats. "Export my data" downloads a human-readable text file with all your questions, answers, and results written out in plain language. "Export as JSON" is still available for anyone who wants the raw data. Both are in the account menu.
A few smaller things: the welcome page now shows your inbox if someone has already sent you a set (instead of just the getting-started content). Light and dark themes are joined by an auto option that follows your system preference. And the guide has been updated to cover all of this.