Additional Fields (Info Field Configuration)¶

Info fields — shown in the UI as a holon's Additional fields — let you define structured, custom data for a holon class: things like format, capacity, theme, links to videos, photo slideshows, or any other detail you want to collect and display. They work for any holon class — organisations, camps, events, and so on — not just camps.

This is one piece of a holon class's configuration. For the bigger picture of holons and their classes, see Holons and classes.

Two parts, set in two places:

The schema (which fields exist, their types, whether they show publicly) is defined once on the holon class — see Holons and classes for how class configuration and inheritance work.
The values are filled in per holon, on that holon's page in the CRM.

Configuring the schema is admin-only. Because the schema lives on the class, it applies to every holon of that class. Where different contexts need different fields (for example, each event's camps needing their own fields), that's done by giving each context its own subclass with its own schema — you don't edit fields on individual holons.

How it works¶

The schema lives on the holon class. You define which fields exist, their types, and whether they appear publicly, in the class's info_field_groups configuration. Like all class configuration, it's resolved up the class's ancestor chain, so a subclass inherits its parent's fields unless it defines its own.
Values live on each holon. Each holon fills in its own values for those fields.
The public view page shows only fields marked public_visible: true that have a non-empty value.
The CRM holon page shows each group as one block, with the group's title and help text at the top, and all of its fields inside. Clicking anywhere in the block opens every field in it at once, and one Save stores them together.
Public or private is marked once, on the group, not on each field: public, private, or mixed when the fields in a group disagree. To see which field is which in a mixed group, look at the class in Settings → Classes.
Photos are the exception. A slideshow field's photos save the moment you add or remove one, so Cancel does not undo them.

Step 1 — Define fields on the holon class¶

The field schema is part of the class's configuration, which is changed through the team's reviewed process (see Holons and classes → Viewing and changing a class's configuration). The schema is an info_field_groups list of ordered groups, each with a title and a list of fields:

{
  "info_field_groups": [
    {
      "title": "Basics",
      "help_text": "Public-facing details shown when visible and filled.",
      "fields": [
        {
          "key": "format",
          "label": "Format",
          "type": "select",
          "options": ["Workshop", "Talk", "Unconference", "Social"],
          "public_visible": true,
          "help_text": "What format will this take?"
        },
        {
          "key": "capacity",
          "label": "Capacity",
          "type": "text-line",
          "public_visible": true,
          "help_text": "Approximate number of participants."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Fields are displayed in group order, then field order. Field keys must be unique across all groups for a given class.

Field definition reference¶

Property	Required	Description
`key`	yes	Unique identifier for this field within the class. Use lowercase with underscores (e.g. `session_format`). Changing the key after holons have saved values will orphan those values.
`label`	yes	Human-readable label shown in the CRM and on the public page.
`type`	yes	One of `text-line`, `text-area`, `select`, `video`, `slideshow`, `button`, `link`, `date`, `time`, `duration`, `playlist`, `timezone`, or `place`.
`options`	only for `select`	Ordered list of choices. Each is either a plain string, or an object `{"value": ..., "label": ..., "icon": ...}` — see the `select` notes below.
`button_text`	only for `button`	Label displayed on the button. Defaults to `label` if omitted.
`public_visible`	yes	`true` to show this field on the public page; `false` to keep it CRM-only.
`help_text`	no	Guidance shown above the field in the CRM edit form. Not shown publicly.
`help_link`	no	URL to detailed help documentation. When present, a Help button is shown alongside the help text in the CRM edit form. Not shown publicly.

Field types¶

Type	Renders as	Stored value
`text-line`	Single-line text input	String
`text-area`	Multi-line text input	String
`select`	Multi-select dropdown with chips, fixed option list	List of strings
`video`	YouTube URL input → embedded iframe (16:9) on display	Normalized `https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/<id>` URL string
`slideshow`	Per-photo upload UI with remove buttons → fade-transition Splide carousel on display	List of media URL strings
`button`	URL input in the CRM → labelled link button on display	URL string
`link`	URL input in the CRM → the address as a plain link on display	URL string starting `http://` or `https://`
`date`	Date picker in the CRM → displayed as "23 Oct 2026"	ISO `YYYY-MM-DD` string
`playlist`	YouTube playlist link plus a Landscape / Portrait choice in the CRM → YouTube's playlist player on display	`{"list": "<playlist id>", "orientation": "landscape"}`
`time`	Time picker in the CRM → shown as typed, e.g. "09:30"	24-hour `HH:MM` string
`timezone`	Ordinary text box in the CRM → shown as typed	An IANA timezone name, e.g. `America/Merida`
`duration`	Number box (minutes) in the CRM → shown in words, e.g. "1 hour 30 min"	Whole number of minutes
`place`	A dropdown of the gathering's places in the CRM → the place's name on display	The place's id (not its name)

Leaving type out, or setting it to "", means text-line. Any other value is refused when the class is saved: a type the app does not know has nothing to display or edit it.

`select` notes¶

Options come in two interchangeable shapes:

Plain string — "Workshop" acts as both the stored value and the display label.
Object — {"value": "mind", "label": "Mind", "icon": "brain"} separates the stable stored value from the display label, and may add an optional icon shown next to the label on chips, cards, and detail pages.

Rules:

value and label are required on object options; the stored value is always the value string, so labels can be reworded later without touching saved data.
icon is optional and must be a key from the shared icon set; an unknown key falls back to showing the label alone. Icons accompany the label — they never replace it.
The two shapes can be mixed in one options list, and existing string-option fields keep working unchanged.
Saved values are validated against the configured options: a value not in the list is not stored.

`video` notes¶

Accepts any common YouTube URL form: youtube.com/watch?v=…, youtu.be/…, youtube.com/shorts/…, youtube.com/embed/…. Any other URL is refused with a message — in the CRM it appears beside the field, your typed text stays in the box, and the video already stored is kept. Clearing the field removes the video.
The embed is rendered in a responsive 16:9 wrapper on both the CRM and public pages.

`button` notes¶

The button_text is set once on the class's schema and shared by all holons of that class. Each holon provides its own URL as the field value.
If the URL value is empty, the button is not shown on either the CRM display or the public page.
If button_text is omitted from the schema, the field's label is used as the button text.

`link` notes¶

A web address that must start http:// or https://, e.g. https://example.org/after. It is checked when you save: a bare address such as example.org, a mailto: address or a javascript: link is refused with a message, and nothing is saved.
A blank value can be saved; it clears the link.
Unlike button, a link has no button text: the address itself is shown as the link.

`time` notes¶

A time of day in 24-hour form, HH:MM — 09:30, 21:05. It is checked when you save: 9:30, 24:00 or 09:30:00 is refused with a message, and nothing is saved.
A blank value can be saved. An experience's Starts field is this type: it orders the experiences within a day on the public programme (see Experiences).

`duration` notes¶

A length in whole minutes — 45, 90, 1440. At least 1, with no upper limit. It is checked when you save: 0, -5, 1.5 or abc is refused with a message, and nothing is saved.
A blank value can be saved. An experience's Length field is this type: with its Starts, it gives the end of the session (see Experiences).

`timezone` notes¶

Type the timezone's IANA name in the form Area/City — America/Merida, Europe/Lisbon, Asia/Karachi. It is checked when you save: a typo such as America/Merdia, a bare UTC, or an old alias such as Mexico/BajaSur is refused with a message, and nothing is saved.
A blank value can be saved. For a local gathering that is caught before the next deploy (see below), because the site judges the gathering's dates in its timezone.

`place` notes¶

One of the places of the gathering the holon belongs to, or none. Organisers keep the list in the gathering's Places section (see Camps and gatherings).
The dropdown offers only those places, and they are the only values a save accepts — in the CRM, on the create form and through the API. Anything else, a typed name included, is refused with "is not one of the offered options", and nothing is saved.
The place's id is stored, never its name, so renaming a place shows the new name everywhere at once.
An id the gathering no longer has (the holon moved to another gathering) shows as no place. Its dropdown says "Unknown place" and keeps the id until someone picks another.
An experience's Where field is this type (see Experiences).

`playlist` notes¶

Paste any YouTube link that contains list= — the playlist page, or a video opened from inside the playlist. The playlist is stored, never the single video. A link with no list= is refused with a message.
Choose Portrait when the playlist is mostly Shorts: YouTube plays those in a vertical player, which a wide box would show between black bars. Landscape is the default.
The player shows the first video's thumbnail straight away; the videos play from youtube-nocookie.com.
Clearing the link removes the playlist. Through the API, send either a playlist link or {"list": "<playlist id or link>", "orientation": "portrait"}; reading returns the object.

`slideshow` notes¶

Photos are uploaded one at a time via the CRM edit UI. Each upload immediately posts and re-renders the photo grid; there is no separate save step for slideshow fields.
Accepted formats: JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP. Maximum 5 MB per photo.
On display (CRM and public), the photos render as a Splide carousel: fade transition, autoplay every 4 s, photos shown with object-fit: contain so they are fully visible. On the public page the navigation arrows and pagination dots are hidden.

Step 2 — Fill in values per holon¶

Open a holon in the CRM. The Additional fields section shows all configured fields.

Click Edit to open the form. Each field renders as the appropriate input type. Save when done. Values are stored on the holon under infos["info_fields"], for example:

{
  "info_fields": {
    "format": ["Workshop"],
    "capacity": "40",
    "internal_notes": "Needs AV support",
    "intro_video": "https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/dQw4w9WgXcQ",
    "photos": [
      "/media/pages/media/my-holon/photos/abc123.jpg"
    ]
  }
}

Value shapes by field type:

text-line, text-area — string
select — list of strings (multi-select)
video — string (normalized embed URL, or empty string once cleared)
slideshow — list of strings (media URLs)
date — an ISO YYYY-MM-DD string; it is displayed as "23 Oct 2026", and the public API returns the ISO form so a client can format it however it likes
button — string (URL; leave empty to hide the button)
link — string (an http:// or https:// URL, or empty)
time — a 24-hour HH:MM string
duration — a number of minutes (an integer, not a string)
place — a string: the id of one of the gathering's places, or empty
playlist — object {"list": "<playlist id>", "orientation": "landscape" | "portrait"}, or {} when empty

Gatherings come with seven of these¶

A gathering (local_gathering) already carries a Gathering details group, so you do not have to define it: Start date, End date, Place, Tagline, Tickets (a button), Photos (a slideshow) and Videos (a playlist). All seven are public, so filling them in puts them straight on the gathering's page and in its public API. Camps and Coherence conversations do not get them.

They also carry Timezone, which is not public. The site judges a gathering's dates — "happening now", "in 3 days" — in that timezone, so a gathering is not shown as live the evening before it starts. It is required when a gathering is created, and a gathering without a valid one stops the next deploy until it is set.

Public display¶

On the holon's public view page — gathering, camp, experience and organisation pages all render info fields — fields are shown when both conditions are met:

public_visible is true on the field definition.
The holon has a non-empty value for that field.

Gotchas¶

Renaming a key breaks existing values. If you change a field's key on the class after holons have already saved data, the old values remain in storage but are no longer linked to the field — they become invisible. Treat keys as permanent once holons have data.

Removing a field from the schema hides its values from the CRM form and public page, but the data stays in the holon's infos JSON. It is not deleted.

Select values are stored as plain strings inside a list. If you change or remove an option from a select field's options list, holons that previously saved that option will still display the raw string (it just won't match any current option in the dropdown).

Slideshow photos are not garbage-collected when removed from the field. Clicking the remove button unlinks a photo from the holon's value list, but the underlying file remains in storage. Hard-deletes of orphaned media must be done out of band.

Additional Fields (Info Field Configuration)¶

How it works¶

Step 1 — Define fields on the holon class¶

Field definition reference¶

Field types¶

select notes¶

video notes¶

button notes¶

link notes¶

time notes¶

duration notes¶

timezone notes¶

place notes¶

playlist notes¶

slideshow notes¶