Methodology
These are the rules DailyAstro actually runs — all of them. Where each point comes from, when a day is vetoed outright, and where each scale tops out. Every line you see behind the “why” button in the app is one of the rules below.
1. Wealth stem (Module 1)
Your birth date gives the day pillar; its heavenly stem is your day master. The element your day master controls is your wealth element. Same polarity is indirect wealth (偏財), opposite polarity is direct wealth (正財). The candidate day's stem sets the base score.
| Candidate day stem | Meaning | Points |
|---|---|---|
| Indirect wealth 偏財 | Windfall, speculation, one-off gain | 50 |
| Direct wealth 正財 | Salary, contract, steady income | 40 |
| Anything else | Not a wealth stem | Not eligible |
Example: a 癸 (yin water) day master controls fire. 丁 is yin fire — same polarity, so indirect wealth. 丙 is yang fire — opposite polarity, so direct wealth.
2. Branch bonus (Module 2)
Only the highest single match applies. The table is evaluated in order and stops at the first hit. “Your natal branches” means your day branch and month branch.
| Rule | Condition | Points |
|---|---|---|
| Three-harmony 三合 | Day branch + your day branch + your month branch complete one group (亥卯未 wood / 寅午戌 fire / 巳酉丑 metal / 申子辰 water) | +50 |
| Six-harmony, day 六合 | Day branch pairs with your day branch (子丑 / 寅亥 / 卯戌 / 辰酉 / 巳申 / 午未) | +20 |
| Six-harmony, month 六合 | Day branch pairs with your month branch | +15 |
| Wealth element | Day branch's element equals your wealth element | +10 |
| No bonus | None of the above | 0 |
3. Clash and punishment veto (Module 3)
This module never adds points; it only removes days. If the candidate day's branch has any of the relationships below with your day or month branch, the day is dropped entirely, no matter how high it scored.
| Type | Combinations |
|---|---|
| Clash 沖 | 子午 · 丑未 · 寅申 · 卯酉 · 辰戌 · 巳亥 |
| Punishment 刑 | 子卯 · 寅巳申 · 丑未戌 |
| Self-punishment 自刑 | 亥 · 午 · 酉 · 辰 |
Self-punishment fires when the candidate day branch is one of those four and the same character appears in your day or month branch. Purpose dates use this veto exactly as written; golden-hour selection has its own clash filter, but it compares against a different pair of branches — see the next section.
4. Golden hour (Module 4 · 五鼠遁)
The 五鼠遁 rule derives the stems of the candidate day's twelve two-hour periods from that day's stem. Each hour is scored and the best one is kept. First, elimination: an hour whose branch clashes or punishes your day branch, or the candidate day's own branch, is discarded. The surviving hours accumulate the points below — several rules can fire at once.
| Rule | Condition | Points |
|---|---|---|
| Full three-harmony | Hour branch completes a three-harmony group across your natal branches and the candidate day branch | +50 |
| Half-harmony | Hour branch and candidate day branch are two different members of one group (mutually exclusive with the above) | +30 |
| Indirect wealth in the hour stem | Hour stem is your indirect wealth stem | +30 |
| Direct wealth in the hour stem | Hour stem is your direct wealth stem (mutually exclusive with the above) | +20 |
| Strong bridge 強通關 | Hour stem is your yang output element (output generates wealth) | +25 |
| Weak bridge 弱通關 | Hour stem is your yin output element | +15 |
| Wealth element in the hour branch | Hour branch's element equals your wealth element | +10 |
A stem cannot be both your wealth and your output element, so the wealth-stem and bridge rules never fire together. The hour therefore tops out at 50 + 30 + 10 = 90. If all twelve hours are vetoed, the day shows “all hours clashed” and the hour bonus is 0.
Total and bands
Total = wealth stem + branch bonus + golden hour.
| Score | Band | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| ≥ 160 | 極強 exceptional | Needs a large bonus from both the branch and the hour; usually a handful per year |
| 130 – 159 | 強 strong | Either the branch or the hour scores heavily |
| 100 – 129 | 良 good | Eligibility threshold |
| < 100 | not listed | Filtered out |
| 190 | Theoretical maximum: 50 (indirect wealth) + 50 (three-harmony) + 90 (hour) | |
Suitability labels
- Indirect wealth day → 博彩投機 speculation
- Indirect wealth day whose golden hour includes a bridge → also 投資部署 strategic positioning (output generates wealth)
- Direct wealth day → 正職簽約 salaried work and contracts
Purpose dates: the almanac gates first
For opening a business, signing, moving, marrying and travelling the logic is reversed: the traditional almanac decides which days are usable, and only then does your chart sort them. Daily 宜 (suitable) and 忌 (avoid) lists come from the lunar-javascript library's almanac data:
| Purpose | The day's 宜 list must contain |
|---|---|
| Open a business 開業 | 開市 |
| Sign a contract 簽約 | 立券, 交易 |
| Move house 搬屋 | 移徙, 入宅 |
| Marry 結婚 | 嫁娶 |
| Travel 出行 | 出行 |
- Almanac gate — the day's 宜 list must contain one of those terms. Base 50.
- Almanac veto, term by term — where a purpose has several terms (signing = 立券 + 交易, moving = 移徙 + 入宅) each term is judged on its own: it counts only if it appears in the day's 宜 list and that same term is absent from the day's 忌 list. At least one term must survive for the day to qualify, and the list — and its “why” view — shows only the terms that actually survived. So a day marked 宜移徙 / 忌入宅 still qualifies for moving on 移徙 alone, and 入宅 is never shown for it.
- Personal veto — if the day's branch clashes or punishes your day or month branch, the day is out (same as Module 3).
- 100-point qualifying line — the score from the first three gates (50 + branch bonus + golden hour) must reach ≥ 100 to qualify; anything lower is dropped just the same.
Score = 50 + branch bonus + golden hour. The branch bonus uses the same module, but since this is not a wealth query the “wealth element +10” rule never fires — only three-harmony +50, six-harmony +20 and +15 remain. The golden hour likewise counts harmony only (full three-harmony +50 / half-harmony +30), with no wealth-stem, bridge or wealth-branch points: moving house is not a money question.
So purpose dates top out at 150 (50 + 50 + 50). That means a purpose list can only ever show “good” and “strong” — “exceptional” never appears there, because it needs 160. A “strong” purpose day is the best there is. Never compare a purpose score directly against a wealth score; they are different rulers.
Compatibility: how two charts are scored
Only the year branch, day stem and day branch are used, so no birth time is needed for either person. Base 50, clamped to 0–100. Each rule is judged independently and all matches accumulate.
| Rule | Points |
|---|---|
| Day-branch six-harmony | +20 |
| Day-branch three-harmony (same group) | +15 |
| Day-stem combination 五合 (甲己 / 乙庚 / 丙辛 / 丁壬 / 戊癸) | +15 |
| Year-branch six-harmony | +10 |
| Year-branch three-harmony | +8 |
| They generate me (their day-master element generates mine) | +8 |
| I control them (they are my wealth / subordinate) | +6 |
| I generate them | +4 |
| Same element 比肩 | +3 |
| They control me | −8 |
| Day-branch harm 相害 | −10 |
| Year-branch clash | −15 |
| Day-branch punishment (including self-punishment on the same branch) | −15 |
| Day-branch clash | −25 |
| Score | Verdict |
|---|---|
| ≥ 80 | 上等夾 excellent match |
| 65 – 79 | 夾 compatible |
| 45 – 64 | 一般 neutral |
| < 45 | 唔夾 incompatible |
Household check
The candidate is scored against every household member. The overall figure is a weighted mean: your own score counts twice, each other member once. But if the candidate has a day-branch clash or punishment with any single member, that hard clash is flagged on its own ⚠ and shown regardless of how good the average looks. Every pair can be expanded to see exactly which rules fired.
First working day
To pick a start date, the day must clash with neither the employer's nor the candidate's day or month branch, and the almanac's 宜 list must contain 開市 or 納財 — judged term by term as above, so a term counts only if that same term is absent from 忌, and one surviving term is enough. The branch-bonus module is then applied to both charts.
Score = almanac 50 + the employer's branch bonus + the candidate's branch bonus. Each chart can contribute at most 50, so this list tops out at 150. It is deliberately not graded good / strong / exceptional, because it is a different ruler again — never compare it against a wealth score (ceiling 190) or a purpose score.
Each row also carries a suggested hour. It is scored on harmony only, exactly as for purpose dates (full three-harmony and half-harmony; no wealth-stem, bridge or wealth-branch points). Hours that clash or punish any of the four natal branches across both charts — the employer's and the candidate's day and month branches — or the chosen day's own branch, are discarded; the highest-scoring survivor is shown, and if all twelve are discarded the row simply shows no hour. The suggested hour is display only and never counts toward the score.
No birth hour? We do not invent one
If you do not know your birth hour, there is no hour pillar. We do not quietly assume midnight and we do not approximate.
The reason is practical. Inventing an hour pillar puts a character into your chart that you never supplied. It would then be displayed among your four pillars and written into the prompt for the AI reading, with nothing to tell you which characters are real and which were filled in for you. We would rather show a chart with one pillar missing than one with a made-up character in it.
Golden hours still work without it, because they are derived from the candidate day's stem via 五鼠遁 and have nothing to do with your birth hour.
To be exact: everything scored above — wealth stem, branch bonus, clash veto and golden hour, plus purpose dates, compatibility and first working days — reads the year, month and day pillars only. No rule reads the hour pillar. So if you do supply a birth time, the hour pillar is stored, shown on your chart, and written into the prompt for the AI reading (which is only sent when you press the button yourself) — but it changes no score, no qualifying date, no band and no golden hour. Every number on this page is identical with or without it. If a rule ever does use the hour pillar, this page will say so first.
What this cannot do
- No true solar time correction. The day pillar rolls over at local civil midnight; longitude is not corrected for. If you were born far from your time zone's meridian, or near midnight, the day pillar may be off by one.
- Single almanac source. The 宜/忌 data comes from lunar-javascript. Different printed almanacs and different schools disagree; we do not pretend there is a consensus.
- The weights are our judgement. Every number above is a decision, not a formula found in a classical text. We publish them so you can judge them yourself.
- This is not financial advice. See the terms of use.