Help & FAQ: private beta
Thank you for being part of the Mulch beta! This page has everything you need to get started, the one big thing that could trip you up first, and answers to what you'll probably wonder along the way.
This is a proof of concept, not a finished product. The goal is to find out whether this is worth building out further and offering paid subscriptions. Part of what I'm testing is the actual usage cost, so depending on how this goes, I may need to charge a small fee to keep using the app after the test period.
Your invite link (emailed to you) expires 7 days after it's sent. If it's gone stale, reach out directly.
The short version, if you'd rather click around than read.
Settings ⚙ → Clinician Profile: your training and orientation, license type, timezone, and the people who support your clinical work (supervisor, consultation group, colleagues). This shapes how notes and reflections read, and who Mulch points you to when a question is better answered by a person.
Learning Edges in the sidebar: one active edge you carry into every session, and any others you want to hold. Not sure what yours is? Open Growth Conversation and talk it through with Mulch.
When you open Mulch, pick Therapy, Coaching or Supervision to document a session, or Reflect First if you'd rather begin with a learning edge reflection or skip the note entirely. Once you're in a conversation, the same choices are under Write in the sidebar.
Plain language is fine; Mulch puts it into clinical language with you. Before writing the note, it reflects back what it's hearing for the Assessment and offers lettered label options for your interventions, so you choose the clinical wording. Every note ends with a blank Next session: line for you to fill in.
The bar above the chat has Write Process Note under Draft (plus Review & Revise once your note is written) and Learning Edge Reflection under Reflect. New Note, Note Options and Clear sit on the right. When you're done, + New Note starts the next one.
See "Read this part" below. This is the one thing worth understanding early.
Read This Part
Starting something new erases what's on screen
Picking anything under Write, or clicking New Note or Clear, permanently deletes the conversation you were just in: notes, drafts, everything. There's no undo. If the conversation has a note you haven't copied yet, Mulch asks before deleting it.
Before you start something new, copy any note you want to keep into your EHR. Your learning edge reflection takes care of itself: it saves when Mulch wraps it up, and if it's still open when you start something new, clear the conversation, or leave, it saves first. If you'd rather stop early, click "Save and end" under Mulch's latest reply.
What's not a problem: closing the browser tab, refreshing the page, or your session timing out. None of those clear anything. Log back in and it's exactly where you left it.
This is deliberate, not a bug. It's the privacy design of the whole app. A note conversation is kept on Mulch's server only while it's your current one, which is why you can come back to it. Once you start a new one or clear it, it's permanently deleted. The same goes for growth conversations: only your most recent one is kept.
What persists long-term is short summaries: reflection summaries from your learning edge reflections and growth conversations, and session self-reports. When you start a new note or click Clear, the previous conversation is boiled down to what you said about your own side of the session, with anything identifying the client removed, so clearing the slate at the end of the day doesn't lose them. You'll find all of them in Reflection History to read, edit, or delete.
Easy to mix up at first: they're two different zoom levels on the same idea.
Lives inside a note conversation (or a Reflect First conversation). Checks in on how your active edge showed up today, and whether the session touched one of your held edges. If the edge went well, it stays brief; if you're working through something, it asks one question at a time. Saves as a short summary the moment it wraps up, filed under the edge it was about.
Its own space, under Learn in the sidebar. Mulch opens by asking what's alive for you in your work right now, then follows what you bring. Conversations here usually go one of three ways:
Growth Conversation stays focused on your clinical work. If you bring something personal, Mulch will ask whether it's showing up in your work; if it isn't, it will suggest people who could help instead. A conversation winds down after about 15 of your messages and closes after 20. It saves itself, and you can start a new one anytime.
Under Learn, and in a panel beside any growth conversation. It describes the twelve areas research and clinical experience point to in helping relationships that work. While you're shaping an edge, Mulch may ask whether it belongs to one of them. In a big-picture conversation, you can use it to give your own read of your strengths and growth areas, and Mulch will ask what you're basing that read on: client feedback, outcome measures, what a supervisor has said, or your own sense.
Under Learn. Once a week, look back at your caseload and write down the one case that stood out: something that went well, or a mistake worth remembering. It's kept to 140 words on purpose, so it stays a 3 to 5 minute ritual. Once you have four or more entries, Mulch shows you an older one to recall before you write the new one. A small dot on Weekly Learning reminds you when this week's entry is waiting; choose whether it shows, and on which days, in Settings ⚙ → App Settings. Mulch never reads these entries; they're just for you.
Under Learn. Everything Mulch has saved for you, in tabs: Learning Edge reflections, Growth conversation summaries, and Self-Reports. You can edit or delete any of them, and change which edge a reflection is filed under.
At the bottom of the sidebar, in three areas:
Help & Legal in Settings links back to this page, the changelog, and the Terms and Privacy pages.
Click a question to expand it.
A progress note (DAP or SOAP) is the structured, clinical-language note meant for the chart: insurance-ready, written in third person. A process note is looser and unstructured. It preserves your own words and phrasing, to capture impressions and detail that don't belong in the formal chart note. Both come from the same conversation, so there's no need to redo anything.
Yes, always. Mulch isn't built to hold real client identifying information, and this isn't optional or beta-specific. Leave out names and initials (the client's or anyone connected to them), places smaller than a state, dates (birthdates, appointment dates, days, and times), ages over 89, contact details, medical record, insurance, or any other ID numbers, and anything distinctive enough that someone who knows the client could recognize them, like a rare condition or an unusual event. "The client," an age range, a state or region, and the diagnosis are all fine.
The clinical judgment in your Assessment is yours. Before writing the note, Mulch reflects back what it heard (progress, what made it possible, what bodes well or poorly, why treatment continues) and asks only about what's missing. It translates your words into clinical language; it doesn't add meaning you didn't give.
Edit it directly, or ask for a rewrite in plain language ("that intervention should be listed as reflective listening, not paraphrasing"). For a closer look, use Review & Revise in the bar above the chat. It checks the note against everything you said and flags anything off before you copy it anywhere.
Yes. The Dictate button in the message box works in notes and growth conversations, or press Alt+M (Option+M on a Mac) to start and stop. Enter sends your message, even while you're dictating. Talk normally; there's no special phrasing required.
Yes, one at a time. Copy out anything you need, then click + New Note. Starting a new note replaces the note conversation you were in, but your saved reflections and self-reports aren't touched.
Use "Forgot password?" on the login screen and Mulch will email you a reset link (it works for an hour). Invite links are one-time and expire after 7 days; if yours has, reach out directly and a new one is quick to send.
Nothing happens automatically or without warning. If the beta doesn't continue in its current form, you'll hear directly about what happens to your saved reflection history before anything changes.
The Support button at the bottom of the sidebar, anytime. It goes straight to me. If it's about something specific Mulch said or did, paste the relevant part of the conversation into that form to help track it down faster.