Circles: trusted requests, private by design

A circle on Hyv is a private group of people who chose to be there, such as your team, your building or old friends. It decides who Hyv may ask for you and what context can travel. There is no member directory, and names are shared only when both people say yes.

Most of your life is neither public nor private. It sits in between: your team, your building, your family, your old college friends. Hyv calls each of those groups a circle.

What a circle is

A circle is a private group of people who chose to be there. It decides what context can travel, who Hyv may ask on your behalf, and what Hyv may use when it helps someone in that group.

Anyone on Hyv can create a circle and becomes its owner. A circle can be open, so people join straight away, or it can require approval, in which case the owner gets a card to allow or reject each request. Owners and admins see the full member list. Other members see the people Hyv has introduced them to, not the whole roster.

A circle gets more useful as it gets denser, not bigger. Twelve people who know each other are worth more than twelve hundred who do not. That is why we start small.

Trusted requests

Sometimes you want something from one specific person: an answer, a decision, a quick check. A trusted request is how you ask through Hyv.

1. You tell Hyv what you need and from whom.
2. Hyv delivers the request privately, in that person’s own chat, as something they can accept or decline.
3. If they answer, they approve what comes back to you.
4. Declining is quiet. Nobody is put on the spot.

Two people become trusted contacts once, as a pair. After that, either one can send the other a request. If either side revokes the trust, it stops in both directions.

Watch the video on YouTube

Messages are not requests

Telling someone something is different from asking them to do something, and Hyv keeps the two apart. “Share these notes with Meera” is a message. Nothing is expected back. “Ask Meera whether Thursday works” is a request. An answer is wanted. Treating every message as a request would create obligations nobody asked for.

What stays private

The person you ask sees the request, not what Hyv worked out about them. There is no directory of members and no profile to browse. Names are shared only after both people say yes.

Questions

Who can see a circle's members?

Owners and admins see the full list. Other members see the people Hyv has introduced them to, not the whole roster.

What is a trusted request?

A private ask to one specific person, delivered in their own chat. They can accept or decline, and declining is quiet.

Private by default. Consent before people. Restraint before action.