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Under the hood

How the planner is built

For the curious and the careful. A look at the engine, the tax modeling, the privacy architecture and the validation that sit behind every number — plus the full documentation to download.

The engine

Deterministic, month‑by‑month — not a black box

The core is a transparent simulation that steps through retirement one month at a time. Configuration flows from your inputs through a clear pipeline — buildPhaseConfig → calcAllPhases → calcPhase → simPhase — applying compound growth, withdrawals and income for each phase.

Because it’s deterministic, the same inputs always produce the same results, and every figure can be traced back to the rule that produced it. Tax brackets, deductions, FPL thresholds and Medicare costs are each inflation‑adjusted per phase.

The deterministic phase engine output on the dashboard.

Tax & treaty modeling

US federal brackets with the senior add‑on, Social Security provisional‑income taxation done the IRS way, NIIT and IRMAA with a two‑year lookback, plus flat state tax. International regimes for the UK, Canada and Australia apply the US Foreign Tax Credit under treaty rules.

Monte Carlo methodology

Thousands of randomised market paths with configurable volatility and — importantly — randomised inflation in every run, for a more honest distribution of outcomes. A historical backtest replays real US market history since 1928 against your plan.

Privacy architecture

The entire app is one self‑contained HTML file. State lives in your browser’s local storage; nothing is transmitted. Optional AI runs under your own API key, called directly from your browser — there’s no WebNomad server in the loop and no account to create.

Accuracy & validation

A calculation engine that checks itself

The planner ships with a golden‑master self‑test that re‑runs the engine against fixed fixture plans and diffs the results against known‑good values — catching silent calculation drift instantly. Coverage spans four national tax regimes, Social Security claim‑age splits, RMD/NIIT/ACA, early retirement, Roth conversions, pensions, lump sums and goals.

  • Regression‑guarded calc engine
  • Worked example reports you can inspect
  • Documented methodology & architecture
A golden-master self-test re-running the engine against fixture plans to catch calculation drift.
Accessible & honest

Built for confidence, designed for everyone

Information first, accessible by default. A WCAG‑AA colour system, high‑contrast theme, adjustable text up to 135% and reduced‑motion support make long planning sessions comfortable. The figures distinguish clearly between nominal (future dollars) and real (today’s money) so you’re never misled by inflation.

The planner’s WCAG-AA colour and theme architecture system.
Documentation

Read the details for yourself

Full documentation, openly available — because a tool you can question is a tool you can trust.

User Guide

A complete walkthrough of every screen and feature in v7.

Download PDF →

Methodology

How the calculations work — assumptions, formulas and modeling choices.

Download PDF →

Architecture

The structure of the app, its state model and calculation pipeline.

Download PDF →

Security Report

The privacy model, data handling and the local‑only architecture.

Download PDF →

Validation

How outputs are checked and regression‑guarded against drift.

Download PDF →

Example Report (v7)

A real, worked plan exported from the planner — see the output for yourself.

Download PDF →

Also available: a Best‑Practices guide — download PDF.

Engineered to be trusted

Serious tools for a serious decision.