Nobody owns the rules
Locktober has no federation and no rulebook. What follows is not authority, it is convergence: the set of rules that people who finish the month tend to have agreed to in advance, in one form or another. Read them as a menu you commit to before October 1, not as commandments.
Rule one — the commitment is written down
A commitment held only in your head rewrites itself. On day nine it will helpfully remember that you always meant to allow exceptions on weekends. Write the terms out before the month starts: what is locked, what counts as removal, what you will do on the days you do not want to. The document is not a formality; it is the version of you from September 30 leaving instructions for the version of you from October 14.
Rule two — removal is defined in advance, not negotiated in the moment
Every workable version of this practice separates legitimate removal from breaking the commitment. Medical need, a device problem, a skin sign, a genuine emergency: these are not failures and should never be penalised. What ruins a month is leaving the definition open, because then every removal becomes an argument with yourself, and you will win that argument. Decide the list in advance and let someone else hold it.
Rule three — proof is daily and cannot be recycled
A photograph of a device sent once can be sent thirty times. Anyone who has run a challenge at scale learns this in the first week. The standard fix is a personalisation requirement: each day the keyholder names something that must appear in the frame — a word on paper, an object, a position — so the proof is anchored to that day. It is not suspicion. It is what makes the check-in mean anything at all.
Rule four — the day you miss is the day that matters
The commitment does not die on day one, it dies on the first missed check-in that nobody mentions. The rule most finishers use: a missed day declared voluntarily costs nothing; a missed day discovered later costs something. That asymmetry is doing real work. It buys honesty at the exact moment honesty is most expensive.
Rule five — consequences are agreed while you are calm
Consequences set in advance are discipline. Consequences invented mid-month, in the heat of the moment, are something else, and they are the single most common way this practice goes wrong. Whether the consequence is an added day, a task, or a financial forfeit, it belongs in the September document alongside everything else. If a consequence would harm you in a way you would not accept on a calm Tuesday, it does not belong in the list.
Rule six — one month is one month
Extending the term mid-month, on impulse, on a high, is the practice eating itself. October ends on October 31. If you want more, you sign a new commitment in November, with a clear head, having seen what thirty-one days actually did to your sleep, your temper and your skin. Our note on what happens after October 31 covers that conversation properly.
Rule seven — safety overrides every other rule
Every rule above is void the moment there is numbness, colour change, swelling that does not resolve, discharge, or pain that is not discomfort. Unlock, then talk. A challenge that cannot survive being interrupted by a skin problem was not a challenge worth keeping.
If you would rather not hold all of this yourself, that is what a keyholding team is for: Locktober 2026 holds the schedule, the definitions and the record, so the only thing left to you is the part that was always yours.