Connecting Apple Health
Connecting Apple Health
Rubric reads data from Apple Health to score your sleep, activity, and recovery. It never writes data back.
During onboarding (Step 11), Rubric requests read access to several Apple Health categories. This is the data pipeline that powers the Watcher persona — the passive layer that collects your biometric and activity information without requiring manual input.
What We Request and Why
| Data Type | What Rubric Uses It For |
|---|---|
| Steps | Activity Index in your Daily Rubric Score |
| Active Calories | Activity Index in your Daily Rubric Score |
| Sleep (duration and stages) | Sleep Index in your Daily Rubric Score |
| Resting Heart Rate | Coach context for recovery and readiness advice |
| Heart Rate Variability (HRV) | Coach context for stress and recovery patterns |
| Workouts | Protocol evaluation and Coach context for training recommendations |
| Weight | Progress tracking and calorie target recalculation |
| VO2 Max | Coach context for cardiovascular fitness assessment |
Read-Only Access
Rubric is strictly read-only. It pulls data from Apple Health but never writes, modifies, or deletes anything in your Health database. Your Apple Health data remains under your control at all times.
What Happens If You Decline Permissions
The app works without full Health access, but your experience will be limited.
- No sleep data: Your Sleep Index cannot be calculated. Your Daily Score will not meet eligibility requirements unless you have activity and nutrition data.
- No activity data (steps/calories): Your Activity Index cannot be calculated. Same eligibility issue.
- No heart rate or HRV: The Coach loses recovery context. It can still advise you, but with less precision.
- No workout data: Protocol tracking for exercise-based contracts will be limited.
The Daily Rubric Score requires at minimum: sleep data, activity data, and at least one nutrition entry. Missing any of these means no score for that day.
What this means for you: Granting all permissions gives you the most complete and accurate score. Each declined permission removes a data source and reduces the system’s ability to evaluate your day.
Sync Behavior
Apple Health data syncs automatically when you open the app or bring it back to the foreground. There is a 30-minute rate limit between automatic syncs to conserve battery. If you need fresh data immediately, pull to refresh on the Dashboard — this forces a sync regardless of the rate limit.
Changing Permissions Later
If you declined a permission during onboarding, you can grant it at any time through iOS Settings. Navigate to Settings, then Privacy & Security, then Health, then Rubric, and toggle on the categories you want to share.
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