Guest Members / Dummy Users

[elmocito]

Problem

Trek currently requires all trip participants to have a full Trek account. In practice, this creates a significant barrier:

• Not every travel companion wants to sign up for yet another service
• Anyone self-hosting Trek behind an SSO provider (e.g. Authentik) would have to grant external people access to their own infrastructure — which is unacceptable from a security standpoint
• As a result, expenses, packing items, and tasks cannot be split across all actual trip participants

Concrete example: On a camping weekend with two friends, expenses can't be split three ways because both don't have Trek accounts — and they shouldn't have to create one.

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Proposed Solution: Guest Members / Dummy Users

Core idea

Allow trip participants without a Trek account to be added as Guest Members. These people have:

• No login, no user account, no access to the app
• Just a name (and optionally an avatar/emoji)
• Full usability in all trip features where people can be assigned

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Desired Behavior

1. Creating a Guest Member

When adding people to a trip: an option "Add person without account" with a name field and optional icon/emoji.

2. Budget / Expenses

• Expenses can be split with Guest Members
• Settlement calculations include Guest Members
• The summary clearly shows who owes whom how much — even for people who are offline

3. Packing List

• Items can be assigned to Guest Members as responsible persons
• Packing categories can be assigned to Guest Members

4. To-do List

• To-dos can be assigned to Guest Members

5. Day Plan / Assignments

• Place assignments can include Guest Members as participants

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Explicitly Out of Scope

• Guest Members cannot log in
• Guest Members have no read access to the trip (no share-link login)
• No email notifications to Guest Members
• No invitation via SSO or Authentik

Anyone who needs real access gets a regular Trek account. Guest Members are purely for the trip owner's internal bookkeeping.

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Why This Matters

Situation	Today	With Guest Members
Camping with friends who have no account	Expenses only tracked for me	Costs split fairly across everyone
Self-hosted Trek behind SSO	Outsiders would need Authentik access	No infrastructure access needed
Family trip with kids	Child has no account	Child as a person in packing list & assignments
Business trip with external partners	Externals must register	External added as dummy with cost share

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Implementation Notes (optional)

• Guest Members could be stored internally as user_type: "guest" without auth credentials
• The trip owner manages Guest Members fully (create, rename, delete)
• Clearly marked in the UI as "Guest" (e.g. different icon, no online status)
• Data model: extend the trip_member table with is_guest: boolean + display_name

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Summary

"We want to plan trips with real people — not just the ones who happen to have a Trek account."

Guest Members would make Trek significantly more practical, especially for self-hosted instances and groups with mixed levels of tech enthusiasm.

[elmocito]

Duplication:
#1291

[elmocito]

@mauriceboe - Where can I admin guest members? Just installed the update and I cannot see the option to add guest members / travel companions. 🤷‍♂️

[mauriceboe]

It's at the trip level