Activate a program (routine + diet plan combined)

Wednesday at the start of a new 12-week block. The training routine and diet plan are already in your library, ready and reviewed. You want to begin today, so the agent prepares a partial week before periodization week 1 starts on Monday.

What the agent needs to hear

Behind your sentence, the agent works backwards to the program to activate (by name or by descriptor), the athlete’s IANA timezone, and the execution choices for its linked routine. The current program is paused automatically so two programs never compete for the same week. Activation starts on the current local date; there is no scheduled activation for a future Monday.

For a Tuesday–Sunday start, the agent previews every date remaining through Sunday. You choose one eligible workout or explicit rest for each date, review the complete week-zero proposal, and confirm it once. Only then does the agent activate the program. The following Monday starts periodization week 1 and the routine’s regular cycle.

Name the program the way it sits in your head: by title (« activate strength + cut Q2 »), by descriptor (« the new 12-week block »), or by what makes it distinct (« the one with the longer leg day and the 2,400 kcal cut »). The agent shows you a preview card with the program’s linked routine, its linked diet plan, and the first week of both queues — then waits for a nod before flipping the switch.

What a program bundles

A program is a bundle: a training routine plus an optional diet plan, framed by a defined engagement window — typically 8 to 16 weeks. Activating the program flips both linked layers together in one coordinated action. The routine becomes the source of daily session queues; the diet plan becomes the source of meal logging and adherence scoring. Do not activate the linked routine separately.

A program without a linked diet plan is still valid — a training-only program is a normal shape. Activation in that case flips the routine and is a noop on the nutrition side; whatever was happening with your diet plan keeps happening, untouched. If the program has both layers, both flip in the same beat.

What activation changes vs activating layers separately

Activating a program coordinates its routine, diet plan, and explicit engagement window as one operation; it is not a recipe for activating each layer back-to-back. The window scopes weekly review, adherence percentages, and the progress narrative to a defined block.

A program engagement gives you « how the strength + cut block went, 12 weeks » as a single read. Separate routine and plan activations don’t naturally bound that window — the data is there, but the « this block » framing isn’t. The forward-looking rule still holds: activation doesn’t rewrite past sessions or meals. Past data stays attached to whichever templates were active then.

During week zero, training adherence uses the workouts in the current effective dated plan, not the routine’s normal weekly target. Rest dates do not count toward the denominator. If every remaining date is rest, week zero is not evaluated, never scored as 100%. Confirmed edits and time off can change the effective denominator before the partial week closes.

When the agent gets it wrong

Catch the wrong choice before you nod. If the agent picked the wrong program (« the maintenance block », instead of the new strength + cut), name the difference more sharply: « no, the new one — the strength + cut, not the maintenance block ». The card swaps.

If the program has no diet plan linked and you expected one, the preview shows that gap: « this program has no diet plan — confirm you want training-only ». If you are not ready to begin on the current local date, do not confirm activation yet; activate when you are ready rather than asking for a scheduled future start.

What makes a clean program activation

Three things decide whether this program switch lands cleanly: the right program is the one now active (a wrong-program activation flips both routine and plan to the wrong templates in one move), the linked layers and complete week-zero selection match what you expect, and the single confirmation happens when you actually start the block. Programs give you a bounded « this block » read that loose activations can’t, while the partial first week remains fair to the dated plan you accepted.