TongShuToday

How We Score Each Day

Every reading on TongShuToday is produced by a deterministic rules engine — the same inputs always yield the same verdict, and the logic is drawn from classical date-selection texts. AI is used only to explain those pre-computed results in plain English. It never invents stars, calculates pillars from memory, or decides that a traditionally unsuitable activity is favourable.

The precedence ladder

A day can carry conflicting influences. Rather than average them, we resolve each activity through a fixed order — the first rule that applies wins:

  1. 1 · Heavenly Pardon (天赦)
    On a rare Heavenly Pardon day, every activity resolves to favourable — a classical reset that softens other cautions. When this applies we say so explicitly.
  2. 2 · Hard exclusions
    Broad negative days (四廢 / 受死) and direct clashes remove an activity outright — no auxiliary star overrides these.
  3. 3 · Auxiliary-star cautions (神煞)
    A star that specifically warns against an activity pushes it to avoid.
  4. 4 · Belt spirit (黃道 / 黑道)
    The day's yellow-path or black-path spirit lifts or lowers activities in its remit.
  5. 5 · Convergence of positives
    Remaining activities count supporting signals from the belt spirit, favourable stars, and the Day Officer. Two or more converging positives read as strongly favourable; a single positive with no negatives reads as favourable.
  6. 6 · Neutral
    Anything left with no clear pull is shown as neutral.

This is why an activity can show as favourable on a day whose overall character is cautious: a specific blessing outranked the general tone. When that happens, the badge shows the reason.

The 12 Day Officers, by tier

The Day Officer (建除十二神) sets the baseline character of the day. The twelve officers fall into five tiers:

AuspiciousSuccess (成) · Open (開) · Full (滿)
FavorableEstablish (建) · Stable (定) · Control (執)
NeutralBalance (平) · Collect (收) · Close (閉)
CautiousRemove (除)
UnfavorableDanger (危) · Break (破)

See the Day Officers guide for what each one favours.

Personal date scores (signed in)

When you sign in with your birth data, each date is additionally scored 0–100 against your BaZi chart. The score starts from the Day Officer base and is adjusted by branch interactions with your four pillars — clashes (六冲), combinations (六合 / 三合), punishments (刑), Empty Branch (空亡) and the Nobleman star (天乙貴人) — then mapped to a tier (Excellent → Avoid).

Known limitation (being honest): today the personal layer works at the five-element level and does not yet apply full Ten Gods with yin/yang polarity, hour selection, or counterparty charts. We label the public reading a General Day Reading and will only call the signed-in layer a full Personal Alignment once that depth is in place.

Classical sources

  • 《協紀辨方書》 (Qing, 1741) — Day Officers & date-selection method
  • 《淵海子平》 (Song, ~1000 CE) — BaZi fundamentals, Empty Branch, Nobleman
  • 《三命通會》 (Ming, ~1550) — punishments & branch interactions
  • 《淮南子》 (Western Han, 139 BCE) — origins of the 12 Day Officers
  • 《通書》 (various editions) — almanac data & activity recommendations

Questions about the method? Tell us — we publish corrections.