Race control
One rule for anything hard to undo, or that lands on somebody else. Three questions, and the first yes decides it.
Brakes are not there to make you go slow. Anyone who races works that out early: good brakes are what let you stay flat out for longer, because you know you can still make the corner. The kart with no brakes is not the quick one. It is the one lifting off early, everywhere, all lap.
Green, yellow and red are your brakes. Not a list of things you are banned from — the reason you get to build at full speed without ending your own race at the first corner that catches you out. And they are yours, not something somebody has on you: you are the one who spots the colour, usually with nobody watching.
Two things set the colour, and neither of them is money: can you undo it, and does it land on anyone but you. That is why the same three colours cover a stranger's DM, a photo with your street in it, and anything somebody wants you to sign.
Telling someone you only know online where you live, where you go to school or where you will be is the same answer — that is the first half of meeting them. Investing and crypto count at any amount. Signing means a real agreement, including one in somebody else's name; making an ordinary app or game account is question 2, not this one.
Red · an adult must be involved
Then it is red. Stop and get an adult in it before you do anything else — including replying.
It also covers making an account, or turning a private one public. Anything you post that shows where you are, or where you will be. Pasting a real message, offer or somebody's details into an app or an AI tool, the two on this site included. And promising to do something for someone by a date.
Yellow · check in with an adult first
Then it is yellow. Say it out loud to an adult first. Two minutes, before it happens.
Green · go
Then it is green. Go and make it.
Answer them in order and stop at the first yes. The lists under each colour below are the long version of these same three questions, so look there if your exact thing is not named. If you are still not sure which one something is, treat it as the more careful colour — that costs you a conversation, and being wrong the other way costs a lot more.
Just do it. Nobody needs to approve this and nothing breaks if it goes wrong. Most of what is on this site is green.
Things that are green
The book's wordsGreen decisions are low-cost and reversible.
Tell an adult before, not after. This is a conversation, not permission — they are looking at it with you, and most of the time they will say go ahead.
Things that are yellow
The book's wordsYellow decisions involve public posting, small spending, or contact with new people and require a check-in.
Not you on your own. An adult is in the room, on the account and on the signature. This is not because you cannot be trusted — it is because these are the ones that are hard to undo.
Things that are red
The book's wordsRed decisions involve contracts, financial products, travel, identity documents, large payments, or in-person meetings and require direct adult involvement.
The quoted line under each colour is printed in the book, on page 61. Everything above it is this site putting that rule into the words you would actually use — including the examples, which the book does not print. They are deliberately not all about money: the printed rule turns on what is hard to undo and who else is in it, and the book applies exactly that to AI tools on page 24, to what you give away to people you build with online on page 36, and to posting your location on page 45. If one of them looks wrong to you, the printed rule wins.
No secrecy around money, meetings, identity documents, or pressure. A legitimate opportunity can survive an adult review and a night of sleep.
That second sentence is the useful one. A real offer is still there tomorrow. If something cannot survive you sleeping on it and showing one adult, that is not bad luck about timing — that is the whole trick, and it is the most common one there is.
A teacher, a coach, a librarian, a youth worker, a school counsellor, an aunt or uncle, a brother or sister over 18. It has to be someone who will actually look at the thing with you — not the person who is easiest to get a yes from.
If there is nobody at home you can ask, that is not a dead end and it does not mean you are on your own. Every Reality Check names who to raise that particular thing with, and several of them assume the answer is not a parent.
Grown-ups reading over a shoulder: Race Control for adults has the same rule with the family agreement, what to ask, and what this site does and does not do with anything typed into it.