Where the app gets in the way

Paying for a booking sends the agent to Stripe and brings them back to Posted jobs, where nothing acknowledges what just happened. If the webhook is a few seconds behind, the job still reads "3 applied · Review", which invites a second booking. A cancelled checkout is just as silent. On the other end, signing off a finished job from the dashboard means opening the job, reading that Pay now lives under Posted jobs, going there, and finding the row.

The fix is two small things. Read the payment= parameter on return and show the result: a toast naming who was booked and what was charged, the row ringed and moved to Booked with a "Confirming payment" state that polls until the appointment exists. And put Pay now and It didn't happen on the dashboard's sign-off card and inside the appointment dialog, reusing the hooks Posted jobs already has.

why

Money is the one place a user will not tolerate guessing. This is also where a double charge could come from.

effort

Small. Two days. The hooks and dialogs exist; this is wiring and one new row state.

touches

MyListings.tsx:530-571 · ApplicationsDialog.tsx:209 · stripe-checkout/index.ts:222 · Index.tsx:726 · AppointmentDetailsDialog.tsx:555

A showing tomorrow at ten with no applicants is the most urgent thing in an agent's day, and the dashboard does not show it. Needs you only knows about applicants, invites, sign-offs and holds. The calendar draws booked appointments only, so an unfilled Thursday looks like a free Thursday. And a post whose date has already passed reads "Nobody yet, and it's tomorrow" forever, because the delta check doesn't know about negative numbers.

Give unfilled posts a presence everywhere. On the dashboard, a Needs-you kind called "Nobody yet" for open posts inside 48 hours, with Raise the pay and Send to agents on the row. On the calendar, a hollow dashed mark on the day, and "Post a job for this day" on an empty day. Past-dated posts move to Done as Expired with "Repost with a new date".

why

The product's promise is coverage. The failure case of that promise should be the loudest thing on the screen.

effort

Medium. Three or four days. New NeedsYou kind, calendar marks, the expiry rule, and the repost prefill.

touches

Index.tsx:678-739 · MyListings.tsx:768-786 · Calendar.tsx:97-104, 328 · CreateService.tsx:137-151

An applicant asks "Can I do 11 instead?" and the only place that message exists is inside the applicants dialog, two taps deep in Posted jobs. Messages says "No conversations yet." The unread count ignores it. On a phone the tab bar has no badges at all, so nothing on the bar changes when someone applies or writes. Meanwhile five applicants on one post produce five notification rows, and dismissing one deletes it for good with no undo.

Make Messages the one inbox: an Applicants group listing application threads where the applicant wrote last, each opening the dialog on that person. Count them in the unread badge. Put that count on More in the tab bar and repeat it on the rows inside the sheet. Group notifications by job and type, load fifty, and give dismiss a five-second undo.

why

Response time is what wins bookings. Agents answer what they can see.

effort

Medium. Three days. A second query in Messages, badge rendering in the tab bar, a grouping pass on notifications.

touches

Messages.tsx:50-93 · useJobThread.ts:219 · BottomNavigation.tsx:61 · AppSidebar.tsx:168 · useNotifications.ts:31 · NotificationsPopover.tsx:55

The board's own empty state says agents post most work the same morning they need it. A contractor finds out only by reopening the app, because none of the thirty-five email types is "a new job near you". The board also forgets its sort, radius and scope on every visit, can't filter by day or minimum pay, and lists jobs beyond the radius without letting you open them.

Add a "New jobs near me" preference with instant or a morning digest, by email or text, with a minimum pay. Put "Alert me about jobs like this" in the board header so the current ZIP, radius and type become the alert with one tap. Keep the board's chips in the URL and in local storage, add When and Min pay chips, make the beyond-radius rows open the preview, and let "Search 25 miles" also become the default.

why

Supply shows up when it hears about demand. This is the cheapest way to raise applications per post.

effort

Medium. A week. One new notification template and a trigger on listing insert, a preference row, and board state changes.

touches

notification-templates.js · EmailPreferenceSwitches.tsx:19 · FindOpportunities.tsx:108-136 · NoOpportunitiesNearby.tsx:78-111

Applying is row, Open job, Apply now, Apply. The last screen shows the job's title and nothing else: no date, no distance, no pay, no agent. The app already knows when the contractor is booked (the dashboard detects overlaps and quietly skips them) but never says "this clashes with your 2pm". A contractor without payouts set up can apply freely; only the agent is told they can't be booked. And after applying, the toast says "You'll hear back soon" with nowhere to go.

Put a summary strip at the top of the apply dialog, a clash line when there is one, and a banner when payouts are off with a button that opens the setup in place. After applying: "Sent to Dana. We'll text you when she books you or passes", with View in My jobs. Once booked, flag other pending applications in the same slot with a one-tap withdraw.

why

Every unbookable or double-booked application costs an agent a day and a contractor a reputation.

effort

Small to medium. Three days. The overlap logic and the payout check both exist; they move into the dialog.

touches

ApplyDialog.tsx:95 · OpportunityPreviewDialog.tsx:146 · Index.tsx:883 · useApplications.ts:59-72, 209 · FindOpportunities.tsx:477

Six places tell the contractor payment "comes when the agent marks it done". It doesn't; it releases an hour after the job ends unless the agent reports a problem. The wallet adds held money to available money, so "In your wallet" is a number nobody can withdraw. On the agent side, a booking whose price changed through a counter shows the posted price in the band and the charged price in the row, and the dashboard and calendar show the posted price too. An agent who only posts can see a negative wallet, because card charges are summed as outflows.

One sentence for payout timing, used everywhere, with the real release time shown on booked rows. A wallet split into Available, Pending with the job count, and Next deposit from Stripe. One helper for the agent's cost that reads the payment row, used by Posted jobs, the dashboard and the calendar. Card charges left out of an agent's balance, and a "Held for booked jobs" figure in their place.

why

Two numbers for the same job is the fastest way to lose trust in a marketplace.

effort

Small. Two days. Copy, one helper, and a wallet summary split.

touches

auto-release.ts:23 · MyOpportunities.tsx:324 · PayoutSetup.tsx:123 · MyWallet.tsx:35-47, 169 · MyListings.tsx:413, 755, 847 · Index.tsx:471 · Calendar.tsx:155

A declined or withdrawn application vanishes from My jobs; the reason lives only in an email. An application for a date that has passed stays "waiting" and inflates "$X if they all say yes". The invite's Decline button opens a preview instead of declining. Going quiet rows have no action. On the agent side, cancelling an unbooked post leaves applicants to discover it gone, and marking a job Filled by hand leaves it in the wrong band with applicants unanswered.

Add "Not this time" rows to Done for thirty days, with the reason and a See similar jobs link. Label past-dated applications and leave them out of the sum. Make Decline decline, with undo. Give quiet rows Message and Withdraw. In the cancel dialog, a checkbox "Tell the 3 applicants", on by default, that rejects them with "Job cancelled". Replace the Filled select with "Covered outside Tour Dash", which moves the job to Done and tells the applicants.

why

Silence reads as rudeness. Each of these is a person left wondering.

effort

Small. Two to three days, mostly reuse of reject and withdraw hooks.

touches

MyOpportunities.tsx:94, 162, 413, 421-458, 437, 484 · MyListings.tsx:1006 · EditListingDialog.tsx:457 · CounterPriceDialog.tsx:41

Press Post with three things missing and you get three toasts, one per press, and nothing on the form stays marked. The form starts blank every time: who sees it, what to pay, nothing is remembered, and leaving the page loses the draft. Tapping a preferred vendor's "Hire again" chip picks their trade and then makes you find them again on step three. The vendor form has no photo uploader, so stagers and cleaners quote blind. There is no repost, no share link on an open post, and no review prompt after a job completes.

Collect every missing field on submit and mark them inline; the footer becomes "3 things left: Date, Price, Who sees it", each a link. Default the audience and price to last time, show the typical price near you, keep the draft in session storage. Make the Hire-again chip carry the person. Add photos to the vendor form, Copy link to open public rows, Leave a review on Done rows for fourteen days, and Post again, which the post-a-job report already recommends as its direction G.

why

Heavy posters post the same job weekly. Every field they retype is a reason to text a colleague instead.

effort

Medium. A week across the two forms. No schema change.

touches

CreateService.tsx:126, 169, 248-336, 888 · SchemaForm.tsx:60 · HireProvider.tsx:185, 297, 564, 796 · MyListings.tsx:789, 820