WATCHMAN : VAULT
CRITICAL DOCUMENT SECURITY  ·  MODULE 03
COMMAND SUITE
MODULE 01  ·  VAULT
Document Registry
Inventory all critical documents — deeds, titles, insurance, wills, passports, military records, and legal instruments.

VAULT has the broadest audience of any module in the suite — every household needs this regardless of preparedness level. Document where every critical piece of paper lives, whether a certified copy exists, and where it is stored. In a house fire, flood, or forced evacuation, knowing exactly what you have and where it is saves everything. Use Priority Tier 1 for documents that cannot be replaced without significant hardship (passports, deeds, wills). Update annually.

+ ADD DOCUMENT
MODULE 02  ·  VAULT
Financial Accounts
Document all financial accounts — banks, investments, retirement, insurance, debts, and digital payment platforms.

In a crisis, families often cannot access funds because account information is only in one person's head. Document every account with institution name, account type, approximate balance category, how to access it, and who else has access authority. Do not store full account numbers or passwords here — use descriptive references that only your family would understand, and store full credentials separately in physical encrypted form.

+ ADD ACCOUNT
MODULE 03  ·  VAULT
Medical Records
Document critical medical information for every family member — chronic conditions, current prescriptions, allergies, providers, and insurance.

When you are evacuated to a shelter or receiving care from someone who doesn't know you, your medical history travels with you or it doesn't exist. Document conditions, medications with dosages, allergies with reaction types, and how to reach your regular providers. Your records function as the written history your medic needs when you are unable to speak for yourself.

+ ADD MEMBER
MODULE 04  ·  VAULT
Family Instructions
Write the letter your family needs if you are incapacitated or unreachable — where things are, who to call, what to do.

This is the hardest module to fill out and the most important. Write specific instructions for your family: where the document registry is, who the attorney is and how to reach them, what accounts exist and how to access emergency funds, where the emergency supplies are, who to call in the preparedness network, and what the bug-out plan is. Update this letter annually. Print it, sign it, and put it somewhere your family knows to look.

+ ADD INSTRUCTION
MODULE 05  ·  VAULT
Quick Reference Card
Data for the laminated wallet card — key contacts, account reference codes, and emergency instructions.

The wallet card is a single laminated card that goes in every adult family member's wallet. It contains enough information to access emergency resources and reach the right people — without containing sensitive data that would be dangerous if the wallet were lost. Use reference codes and initials rather than full account numbers or addresses.

+ ADD CARD LINE
MODULE 06  ·  VAULT
Digital Assets
Document digital accounts, online services, and credential access paths — what exists and how your family reaches it.

Digital accounts are entirely undocumented in most preparedness plans, yet they hold financial assets, critical communications, and irreplaceable files. Record every account a family member would need to reach in your absence. Import CSV bulk-loads an export from any major password manager. Credentials stored here are excluded from the printed binder unless you deliberately opt in, and print instead as a separate safe copy.

+ ADD ACCOUNT
MODULE 07  ·  VAULT
Insurance Register
Every policy in force — carrier, agent, policy number, term dates, coverage limits, deductibles, and the declarations page itself.

The declarations page is the controlling document. It is reissued at every renewal and it decides the outcome of any claim. Record each policy here and attach the dec page. Compare each renewal against the prior term — a dropped limit, a raised deductible, or a roof settlement basis quietly changed from replacement cost to actual cash value is a change you can push back on, but only if you notice it.

+ ADD POLICY
OUTPUTS  ·  VAULT
Generate Documents
Print-ready reference outputs from your recorded data.
FULL BINDER
Print Critical Document Binder

Every module in order — documents, financial, medical, family instructions, quick reference, and digital assets — as one print-ready document, each section on its own page for three-ring tabs. A cut-out wallet card prints on the last page.

SAFE COPY
🔑 Stored Credentials

Every stored username, password, security answer and recovery code from Digital Assets, printed as its own marked document. This one goes in the safe, not on the shelf.

OUTPUT 1
Document Registry Summary

Complete inventory of all registered documents, sorted by category with location and copy status.

OUTPUT 2
Family Instruction Letter

Formatted letter with emergency instructions — sign and file.

OUTPUT 3
Medical Summary Cards

One card per family member with conditions, meds, and allergies.

OUTPUT 4
Wallet Quick Reference

Laminated wallet card with emergency contacts and references.

Encrypted store: ao_vault_enc_v1  ·  AES-GCM 256  ·  Export before clearing.
DOCUMENTATION  ·  VAULT
User Manual
Field guide to the WATCHMAN VAULT — what it does, how to use it, and how to print it for your binder.
WATCHMAN VAULT
Critical Document Security & Family Continuity  ·  Module 03  ·  User Manual
1  ·  What VAULT Is

VAULT answers one question your family will face in the worst moment of their lives: what critical documents and accounts exist, and where do we find them? In a house fire, flood, evacuation, hospitalization, or death, the knowledge locked in one person's head becomes worthless to everyone else. VAULT writes that knowledge down.

The guiding doctrine is pointer, not payload. VAULT records where the original deed is, where the password is stored, and who has access — not the document itself and not the password. This keeps the file safe to print, carry, and hand to family without exposing the very things you are protecting.

WHO NEEDS THIS: Every household, regardless of preparedness level. This is the broadest-audience module in the suite.
ONE EXCEPTION TO POINTER-NOT-PAYLOAD: the Insurance Register (Module 07) stores full policy numbers and the declarations page itself. A claim cannot be filed from a pointer. Treat a printed binder containing Module 07 as sensitive and store it accordingly.
ENCRYPTION: The entire vault is encrypted at rest with AES-GCM 256. On first run you set the suite-wide Master password and receive a one-time recovery key — print it with PRINT KEY CARD or write it down. Setup then offers the optional JWBuild rescue choice: NO (the default) means only you can ever unlock the vault; YES saves a locked rescue file on this computer only, usable as a last resort if both passwords and the key card are lost — email it to JWBuild with your license key, verify identity, and receive a one-time unlock code that forces a full re-key on use. Nothing is ever transmitted either way. If rescue was declined and everything is lost, the vault cannot be opened by anyone, by design.
2  ·  The Seven Sub-Modules
  • 01 Document Registry — Every critical piece of paper: deeds, titles, passports, wills, insurance, military records. Logs the original location, whether a certified copy exists, and digital-copy status. Built and active.
  • 02 Financial Accounts — Banks, investments, retirement, debts, payment platforms. References only, never full account numbers.
  • 03 Medical Records — Conditions, medications with dosages, allergies, and providers for every family member.
  • 04 Family Instructions — The letter your family reads if you are gone or unreachable. Where things are, who to call, what to do.
  • 05 Quick Reference Card — Data for the laminated wallet card every adult carries.
  • 06 Digital Assets — Online accounts and how family reaches them. Reference fields are safe to print; a separate stored-credentials section can hold real usernames, passwords, security answers, authenticator secrets and recovery codes. Bulk-loads from any password manager's CSV export. Built and active.
  • 07 Insurance Register — Every policy in force: homeowners, auto, life, umbrella, flood, health and the rest. Carrier, agent, policy number, term dates, coverage limits, deductibles, and the declarations page itself. Built and active.
Module 07 is the one exception to the pointer-not-payload rule. An insurance claim cannot be filed without the full policy number, and a declarations page is worthless as a pointer — it has to be the document. Both are stored here in full, inside the encryption.
3  ·  Adding & Editing Entries
1
Open a module from the left navigation, then click ADD DOCUMENT (or ADD ACCOUNT).
2
Fill the form. Only the name field is required — everything else is optional, fill what you know.
3
Click SAVE ENTRY. The card appears, sorted by category.
4
Click the green SAVE button on the action bar to write to local storage. Entries also auto-save shortly after a change.

Reading is separate from editing. Click anywhere on a card and it opens as a clean read-only page: everything the entry holds, laid out in order, with nothing you can change by accident. Empty fields are left out rather than shown blank, so a sparse entry reads short. EDIT THIS ENTRY at the foot of that page opens the form; the EDIT and buttons on the card itself still work directly.

The read-only page also states what is missing, in plain language rather than as a blank space — a document with no original location recorded, a Tier 1 document with no certified copy, an account only one person can reach, a person with no blood type on file. A policy page adds its own findings, described in section 5.

The status pips on each card are a quick completeness check: ORG (original location logged), CERT (certified copy exists), DIG (digital copy exists), ATT (reference photo attached).

4  ·  Reference Photos & Attachments

The Document Registry, Medical Records, and Insurance Register all accept attachments — a shot of the safe where the original lives, the document itself for identification, an insurance card front, or a full declarations page. Images are downscaled and compressed; PDFs are stored as-is.

SECURITY & LIMITS: Everything in VAULT — entries and attachments alike — is encrypted at rest (AES-GCM 256) and readable only after unlock. Storage runs through the suite storage layer into IndexedDB rather than the old 5 MB browser bucket, so full-size scans are no longer a problem: 30 MB per file, 500 MB per vault. Even so, keep an off-device master of anything irreplaceable on separate encrypted media (IronKey / VeraCrypt) and log that location in the entry. A vault that only exists on one machine is one dead drive away from nothing.

To attach: open or edit an entry, find the attachment strip, click + ADD, and pick an image or PDF. On the thumbnail, the saves the file back out and the × removes it.

Getting a file back. Open the entry as a read-only page and each attachment appears as a card with two buttons: VIEW opens it in a new tab, SAVE downloads it under its original filename. A stored document you cannot retrieve is not stored, it is lost, so both paths exist deliberately.

5  ·  Insurance Register (Module 07)

The declarations page — the dec page — is the controlling document of any insurance policy. It is reissued at every renewal, it is what a lender asks for, and it is what decides the outcome of a claim. The full contract behind it can run eighty pages; the dec page is the one or two that matter. Almost nobody reads it. Module 07 exists so that you do.

1
Click ADD POLICY and set the Policy Type first. The form reshapes itself around the type: homeowners gets Coverage A–F and the deductible block, auto gets a per-vehicle table, life gets beneficiaries, everything else gets a generic limits table.
2
Download the declarations page from your carrier's portal as a PDF, then use IMPORT DECLARATIONS PAGE at the top of the form. Readable fields are filled in as amber drafts. Check every one against the document before saving — carrier layouts vary and anything the reader could not find is left blank rather than guessed.
3
Attach the dec page itself under + ADD, and the full policy packet if you want it. Everything is encrypted at rest and stored in IndexedDB, so full-size scans are fine.
4
Fill anything the reader could not find, then SAVE POLICY. Fields it filled are marked amber until you touch them.
5
Fill the 24-Hour Claims Line. It is a different number from your agent, it is the one you need at 2 a.m., and it is the field people most often leave empty.

What the reader can and cannot do. A PDF downloaded from a carrier portal carries a real text layer and reads instantly. A scan or a photograph carries no text at all — it is a picture of a page — so those are read with built-in OCR, which takes a few seconds on the first run while the reader loads from disk. Black-and-white scans from office copiers use fax compression that no browser decodes; VAULT decodes it itself, so the scanner setting does not matter. Everything happens on the machine. Nothing is uploaded, and there is no network call at any point.

A mailed policy is typically a dozen pages of cover letter and state notices with the declarations page buried near the back. The reader scans every page at low resolution first, scores each one for declarations-page markers, then reads only the winners properly. It tells you which page it found. It also reads the state-notice pages, but only to harvest the filed-rate comparison and the plain statements of what the policy excludes — never a limit, a deductible or a settlement basis. A notice saying you "may be eligible for" something is an advertisement, not a statement of your coverage, and it is not treated as one.

OCR MISREADS DIGITS MORE OFTEN THAN LETTERS. Check every dollar figure and every date character by character before saving. Anything the reader could not find is left blank rather than guessed, which is the behaviour you want: a blank field is obviously incomplete, a wrong one is not.

Cards sort by renewal date, soonest first. The last pip on each card counts down: green, amber inside 45 days, red once the policy has lapsed. RENEWAL SCHEDULE on the action bar prints the whole list by expiration date with agent and claims numbers — that is the page that goes in the binder and on the refrigerator.

WHAT TO WATCH AT RENEWAL: Compare each new dec page against the prior term. A carrier can lower a limit, raise a deductible, or switch roof settlement from replacement cost to actual cash value, and the only notice you get is a line on a page you did not read. On a fourteen-year-old roof that single change is the difference between a full replacement and a depreciated check. Record the prior premium and prior term notes so the comparison is possible at all.
SPECIAL LIMITS — READ THIS ONE: Coverage C on a homeowners policy carries sub-limits on firearms, cash, precious metals, jewelry, silverware, and often tools and optics. A safe full of rifles and silver is very likely covered for a fraction of its value under the standard policy. Anything above the sub-limit has to be scheduled individually and appears on the dec page by name. Use the Scheduled Personal Property table to record what is scheduled, at what value, and when it was last appraised — and to make obvious what is not.

Perils not covered. A policy tells you what it excludes, usually in a notice nobody reads. The gaps section records each one and, more importantly, whether the gap is filled by a separate policy or simply open. An unrecorded exclusion reads exactly like a covered peril right up until the day you claim. Flood, earthquake, landslide and mudflow are the ones that matter in mountain country, and none of them are covered by a standard homeowners policy.

Premium benchmark. Several states require a carrier to disclose in writing when it charges above the filed rate. Record that figure and the module works out how far above it you are and shows it on the card. It is legal to charge above the filed rate, and common; a large loading is simply the number to take to a competing quote.

LIFE POLICIES: The owner and the insured are often two different people, and only the owner can change a beneficiary. Outstanding policy loans come off the death benefit. And the last field in that block — whether the beneficiaries know the policy exists — is not bookkeeping. Unclaimed life proceeds are one of the most common continuity failures there is, and it is the exact failure VAULT was built to prevent.
6  ·  Stored Credentials & the Safe Copy

Most of VAULT follows pointer, not payload: it records where a thing is, not the thing itself. Digital Assets is the one place that can hold the payload, because for some accounts a pointer is not enough — the password manager's own master password has nowhere else to live, and an account whose recovery codes are lost is an account nobody gets back.

Each Digital Assets entry therefore has two halves. The reference fields say where the password lives and are safe to print, carry and hand to family. The stored credentials section holds the real username, password, security answers and recovery codes.

HOW THEY ARE PROTECTED: credentials are masked on screen and revealed one field at a time. They are excluded from the full binder by default — the binder prints a line saying they were withheld and where to find them instead. Including them takes a deliberate tick of a checkbox on the Generate Docs screen.
THE SAFE COPY: PRINT SAFE COPY produces the credentials as their own document, marked SECRET and grouped with the critical accounts first. That sheet grants access to every account on it. It belongs in the safe, not on the shelf beside the binder. Reprint it after any password change and destroy the copy it replaces.
ONE THING TO PUT HERE FIRST: your password manager's master password and recovery kit. Everything else in the manager is unreachable without them, and by definition they cannot be stored inside it.

A plaintext export writes credentials in the clear and now warns you by count before it does. Treat that file as equivalent to the safe copy.

Importing from a password manager. IMPORT CSV at the top of Digital Assets reads an export from Proton Pass, Bitwarden, 1Password, LastPass, Chrome and anything else that writes the usual columns. The file is parsed in the browser and never leaves the machine.

Before anything is written you are shown what was found: how many entries, broken down by item type, how many carry a password, how many have not been changed in over three years, how many are already in the vault, and the name of any column the importer did not recognise. Nothing is imported silently.

WHEN AN ENTRY ALREADY EXISTS you choose: keep what is here and add only what is new, update the existing entries from the file (what you want after changing passwords elsewhere), or import everything and sort the duplicates out by hand. Re-running the same file twice changes nothing.
AFTERWARDS, DELETE THE EXPORT. A password-manager CSV sitting in the downloads folder is the most valuable file on the machine and it is not encrypted. Delete it and empty the recycle bin. VAULT reminds you when the import finishes.

Beyond logins, the importer keeps email aliases, secure notes and Wi-Fi entries as their own item types, keeps email and username apart rather than flattening them into one field, and preserves folders and dates. The last changed date drives a warning on any entry left alone for more than three years.

With several hundred entries the card list is capped and the search box becomes the way through it. Search covers the account name, website, address, folder and notes.

7  ·  Generating Documents

The Generate Docs screen turns your entries into print-ready references. Print Full Binder is the main one: it prints every module in order — documents, financial, medical, family instructions, quick reference, and digital assets — as a single document, with each section on its own page for three-ring tabs and a cut-out wallet card on the last page. Output 1 — Document Registry Summary prints just the document inventory when that is all you need.

Print it, punch it, and file it in your preparedness binder. Re-generate and reprint after any major change, and at minimum once a year.

Outputs 2–4 (standalone Family Instruction Letter, Medical Summary Cards, Wallet Quick Reference) are placeholders; their content already prints inside the full binder.
8  ·  Backup, Restore & Data Safety

All VAULT data lives in this browser, encrypted (AES-GCM 256) under the key ao_vault_enc_v1. It never leaves your device. That also means clearing browser data, or switching devices, will lose it unless you back up.

  • EXPORT (ENCRYPTED) — downloads watchman_vault_encrypted_backup.json, the sealed vault exactly as stored. Do this regularly; the file is safe anywhere because it opens only with your passwords. EXPORT PLAINTEXT exists for migration — treat that file as fully sensitive.
  • IMPORT (JSON) — loads a backup. This overwrites everything currently in VAULT.
  • CLEAR ALL DATA — wipes the vault. Always export first.
RULE: Export before you clear, before you update the app file, and before you trust any single device. The backup IS your continuity.
9  ·  Maintenance Schedule
  • Annually: Review every module. Verify locations are still accurate, copies still exist, providers and accounts are current. Reprint the binder copy.
  • At every insurance renewal: Import the new declarations page, compare it line by line against the prior term, and record what changed. This is the single highest-value recurring task in VAULT.
  • On change: New vehicle, new account, moved the safe, renewed a passport — update the entry the same week.
  • After any backup: Confirm the JSON file actually downloaded and is stored where family can reach it.

"Knowledge creates the obligation to warn." VAULT is how you warn the people who will need this when you cannot tell them yourself.

10  ·  Demo Sandbox

VAULT ships with a demo sandbox — a separate copy pre-loaded with a completed document registry for a fictional family (the Reeds): vital documents, financial accounts, insurance, property, and a quick-reference card, all inside a working encrypted vault.

  • Opening and leaving: click DEMO in the sidebar under this manual. Inside the demo, that slot reads RETURN TO LIVE.
  • The demo vault password is demo1234 — it is printed on the demo's lock screen. Unlock and explore.
  • Your real data is safe: the demo uses separate storage slots for the vault, its rescue file, and everything else. Nothing done in the demo can touch your real VAULT.
  • Practice the ceremony: unlock with demo1234, then exercise every credential control safely — set an OPERATOR PASSWORD, rotate with CHANGE MASTER, issue a NEW RECOVERY KEY (and print it with PRINT KEY CARD), and toggle JWBuild RESCUE. A rescue file from the demo is named with DEMO so it can never be mistaken for a real rescue request.
  • Worth opening first: the Insurance Register. The Reeds' six policies are built to show what the module catches — a homeowners policy whose roof settlement was quietly switched to actual cash value, an auto policy inside its renewal window, a life policy whose beneficiaries have never been told it exists, and a flood policy that lapsed when it fell off the mortgage escrow at a refinance. Click any card to read it; the findings are stated at the top of the page.
  • Reset: the ↺ RESET DEMO button in the top bar wipes all demo data, including any password set in the demo, and restores the clean sample.