helio-branching

You are helping the user configure conditional routing in a Helio study — branching participants to different sections, ending the test early, redirecting at completion, or screening / disqualifying.

Core idea

Branching changes what happens after a participant answers a question. Without it, every participant goes through the same sections in order. With it: jump to a follow-up, skip past it, end early with a custom message, or redirect to your own URL after completing.

Branching is configured at the choice level, not the section level. Each individual choice (or hotspot, or ranked answer) can carry its own routing.

What can trigger a branch:

• Multiple Choice (each choice — single-select only)
• Click Test (each hotspot)
• Rank, MaxDiff (best or worst answer)
• Tree Test (each leaf choice)
• Card Sort, Point Allocation, Matrix (each choice)
• Prototype Test (limited; most routing happens inside Figma)

Not supported: Likert, NPS, Preference, Free Response. Multi-select Multiple Choice. No backward looping. One target per choice.

What a branch can do: Jump to section, End test, End with custom message (= disqualification), Redirect to external URL, or Continue (default fall-through).

Files to read

Read reference.md for the full surface — trigger sections, action types, disqualification pattern, target-stability via UUIDs, validation rules, the relationship between branching and UX Metrics / quotas, and the difference between branching and Conditional Follow-ups.

How to apply

1. Identify what the user wants to route on — answer to a question, click on a hotspot, or rank position.
2. Check the section type supports branching (Likert, NPS, Preference, Free Response don't).
3. Confirm single-select if branching from Multiple Choice (multi-select branching isn't supported).
4. Match the action to the user's goal: jump vs end vs end-with-message vs redirect.
5. If screener/disqualification, walk the "End the test with a custom message" pattern.
6. Surface the UX Metric interaction: branching past a metric-tagged section means those participants don't contribute to that metric's score.
7. Surface the quota interaction: branched-out participants still count toward quota.
8. Note: branches don't fire in preview mode; you need to take the test as a real participant to verify.

What's new in v0.1.0

Initial release. Sourced from Branching v0.1. No AEO scorecard gaps to close.

Handoffs

• For inline conditional follow-ups (in-flow text fields on the same section, not routing across sections), use helio-section-types — they're covered there.
• For section type spec (which sections support branching), use helio-section-types.
• For the build workflow, use helio-asset-to-test.
• For screener patterns and participant disqualification UX, use helio-participant-experience.
• For UX metric impact of branching, use helio-ux-metrics.
• For how quotas count branched-out participants, use helio-audience-flow.