Items

Items are the working records inside Custory. Stages and steps show where the customer is. Items explain what is happening there, what your team learned, what is worth improving, what you plan to change, and how you will measure progress. Use this page when you want the mental model for items. For fields, statuses, and editing controls, use Item details and fields.

What an item is

An item is a structured record that lives in one of two places:

on a journey step, where it explains a specific customer moment
in Building blocks, where it stays reusable across multiple journeys

That distinction matters. A journey placement is where the item appears. A building-block record is the shared source item.

The five item types

Custory uses five item types. Each one answers a different question.

Type	Core question	Use it for	Good example	Common mistake
Touchpoint	Where does this happen?	A customer-visible moment, surface, or interaction	`Workspace invite email`	Naming a broad phase such as `Activation`
Insight	What did we learn?	A clear learning from evidence	`Solo admins hesitate because they are not ready to invite teammates yet`	Writing a vague opinion such as `Need better UX`
Opportunity	What should improve?	A problem or leverage point worth acting on	`Reduce pressure at the teammate invite step`	Jumping straight to the answer
Solution	What will we try or ship?	A candidate or committed response	`Add a skip-and-return-later path`	Naming the problem again instead of the response
Metric	How will we know?	A number that shows whether the problem matters or the response worked	`Invite completion rate within 3 days`	Using a broad label such as `Growth`

How items fit together

The item model is designed to keep the path from evidence to action readable. Allowed relationships are:

Touchpoint -> Insight
Insight -> Opportunity
Opportunity -> Solution
Opportunity -> Metric
Solution -> Metric

This keeps the team from mixing raw evidence, problem framing, responses, and measurement into one bucket.

Journey item vs reusable building block

Keep an item on a journey when it only matters in that one map. Promote it into Building blocks when:

the same touchpoint appears in multiple journeys
one metric should stay consistent across several flows
the same insight or opportunity keeps coming up in different maps

If you reuse an item, removing it from one journey is not the same as deleting it everywhere. Use Delete from journey to remove the placement only.

Choosing the right item type

Use this quick test when a new item could fit more than one type.

If your sentence sounds like…	It is probably a…
`Customers hit this page, email, chat, or handoff`	Touchpoint
`We learned that customers struggle, want, or value something`	Insight
`This is the problem we should prioritize`	Opportunity
`This is the change, experiment, or process update we should make`	Solution
`This number tells us whether the problem matters or the change worked`	Metric

Two common mistakes:

If the title sounds like a fix, it is usually a solution, not an opportunity.
If the title sounds like a broad theme, it is probably too vague for any item type.

Example

A B2B SaaS team sees trial users stall during setup.

Type	Example item
Touchpoint	`Customer reaches the invite teammate step`
Insight	`Solo admins hesitate because they are not ready to involve the team yet`
Opportunity	`Reduce pressure at the teammate invite step`
Solution	`Add a skip-and-return-later path`
Metric	`Invite completion rate within 3 days`

This is the sequence Custory is built to preserve: customer moment, learning, problem, response, and measure.

Where to look next

Use Item details and fields for fields, statuses, permissions, relationships, and item editing behavior.
Use Building blocks when an item should stay reusable across journeys.
Use Metrics for live metric data from PostHog or Stripe.

What's Custory

Getting started

What an item is

The five item types

How items fit together

Journey item vs reusable building block

Choosing the right item type

Example

Where to look next

​What an item is

​The five item types

​How items fit together

​Journey item vs reusable building block

​Choosing the right item type

​Example

​Where to look next

What an item is

The five item types

How items fit together

Journey item vs reusable building block

Choosing the right item type

Example

Where to look next