Signing in with a wallet

Wallet login is a signed message, not a password. You approve a signature in a browser wallet such as MetaMask. The studio never stores a wallet password because there is not one to store. The signature proves you control the address. That is enough to open the dashboard that matches your role. If you would rather not install a wallet, use email. Both doors are first-class. Neither is a loyalty program. Neither is a crypto checkout.

We have offered this path because some merchants and students already keep a browser wallet, and because a signed message avoids a second password on a studio that already asks you to remember Square and a bank. It is optional. A Burnaby salon owner who only wants email should use email. A Montreal retailer who already signs messages for another tool can use the same habit here. We will not make wallet login the only door. We will not make an ETH payment the only way to pay a CAD invoice.

PIPEDA still applies. We store the address and the role because that is how we open the right dashboard. We do not store a seed phrase. We will never ask for a seed phrase in email, on the phone, or in a booked hour. If a message asks for your seed phrase, it is not us. Call +1 (672) 200-7924 on a weekday if you are mid-login and something looks wrong, or write admin@sycgeeks.ca if it can wait. We will not put a seed field on this site. That refusal is the product.

Wallet users are treated as verified. You will not be sent to the email code screen. That is a convenience, not a claim that a wallet is more “enterprise” than email. Email users complete the code because that is how we know the inbox. Two methods, two proofs. Pick one per person. Do not share a wallet across a salon and a student. Roles will collide. Notes will leak. Hours will land in the wrong view.

Select client, merchant, or student before you continue with the wallet. New wallets store that role. Existing wallets keep the role they already have. The picker on a second visit will not silently rewrite a merchant into a student. If you need a role change, write admin@sycgeeks.ca. Do not create a second wallet to “try student” on a live store. You will lose the project list that holds your CAD receipts.

Client is the person who approved a quote or is about to. You will see what you need for that relationship. Merchant is the person who runs ongoing projects: status, progress, notes, workflows, purchases, appointments. Student is orientation first, then the hour log. A Montreal retailer who also teaches should not use one wallet for both. Two people, two proofs, two dashboards. Mixing them is how a student hour appears to edit a launched cart.

If you are booking a first Square appointment and have no account, you do not need a wallet yet. Book, talk, write the brief to admin@sycgeeks.ca. Connect a wallet when you want the dashboard file. Guests can hold a Pacific time slot without MetaMask. We built it that way so a Burnaby owner is not installing software in the chair between clients. Wallet is a login. It is not a ticket in.

English and French follow the site locale, not the wallet. The signed message is a proof, not a language preference. Set the language on the site. Merchant notes should still be written in the language the next person can act on. A French note about HST on Ontario orders is fine. A wallet that “is crypto so the site should be English only” is a non sequitur. We ship both official languages. The address does not change that.

Install a browser wallet such as MetaMask from the vendor’s site, not from a random ad. Create or unlock the wallet. Return to our sign-in. Choose the role. Continue with the wallet. Read the message before you approve. You should see a studio signature request, not a token spend, not a bridge, not a mint. If the prompt asks you to send ETH, cancel. Login does not move funds. Login does not set an allowance. Login is a signature.

Apple Pay, Interac e-Transfer, Square, Stripe, and PayPal are payment rails on invoices and carts. They are not this login. Optional ETH as a payment is a quoted amount you sign on a purchase, in CAD terms we wrote on the quote. That is a different prompt on a different page. Do not confuse a checkout signature with a login signature. One opens a dashboard. One pays a number. If you only wanted the dashboard, you should never see a spend.

If several browser profiles each have a wallet, know which profile you are in. Signing with the address that is not in our database creates a new user with the role you picked. That can look like an empty merchant dashboard on a Tuesday when your projects live on the other address. Write us the address you meant if you locked yourself out. We will not recover a wallet. We can attach work to the address you already used, or we can move you to email.

On success you land in the matching dashboard. Merchants see projects. Students see orientation or Hours. Clients see the client view. Appointments you booked as a guest can be attached once you have a login; keep the Square confirmation. Purchases you make after login show in CAD. Care — $450 CAD a month or $4,500 CAD a year — is a purchase, not a wallet setting. Connecting MetaMask does not enroll care. It does not apply the 25 percent add-on discount. That discount follows the care subscription on the account.

If you see a parse error or an empty response, the nonce route could not reach the database. Try again when the studio is online, or use email and password. A blank error is usually our side, not your seed, not your chain, not your “gas.” Login does not need gas. If both wallet and email fail on a weekday and you cannot see a live project that takes money, call. That is heat. If you are exploring the site on a Sunday, write and wait. We will not debug a nonce on Instagram.

If the wallet extension never opens, you are in a browser that cannot host it, or the extension is disabled. Try a desktop browser that actually runs the wallet. We will not fake a wallet button in a context that cannot sign, the same way we will not fake Apple Pay where the processor cannot settle it. WCAG still applies: the email path must work with a keyboard if the wallet path does not. We will not tell a screen-reader user that MetaMask is mandatory. Email remains the other door.

If you approved a signature and landed in the wrong role, stop. Do not keep clicking. Write the address and the role you need. We will not “just flip it” in a chat. Role changes are a studio action because they change what data you see. A student view must not suddenly show a merchant’s customer notes. A merchant view must not become an hour log. That boundary is compliance, not fussiness.

Use email if you share a practice computer, if you cannot install extensions, if your college blocks wallets, or if you simply do not want one. Email and a code are enough. You will still see projects or orientation according to role. You will still book Square slots. You will still pay in CAD on the rails we quoted. Wallet login is not a higher tier. It is a different proof. A studio since 2015 should not make a hairdresser install a chain to see a booking.

Do not attach a wallet later as a “backup password” on an email account unless we have a documented merge. Two proofs for one person without a merge is two users. Notes diverge. Hours vanish. Invoices look unpaid. If you started on email and now want a wallet, write us. If you started on a wallet and lost the device, use any recovery the wallet vendor provides, then sign again, or ask us to move the role to email. We recover studio data. We do not recover keys.

Shared inboxes are a bad wallet substitute and a bad email substitute. admin@yourshop.ca used by four staff means nobody owns the note. Pick one human as the merchant login. Others book appointments or write as themselves. Students always use their own student role. PIPEDA is easier when we know who signed. GST invoices are easier when we know who paid. The dashboard is a file. Files need a name.

It is not a payment. Paying a quote still happens on Square, Stripe, PayPal, Apple Pay, Interac e-Transfer, or an optional ETH rail we named in CAD. It is not a discount. Care and the roughly 25 percent off add-ons do not care how you signed in. It is not identity for a bank. It is not a substitute for GST numbers on an invoice. It is not a way to skip student orientation. The hour log still waits on the steps. A signature does not complete a lesson.

It is not a reason to put crypto in the footer of a salon site. Optional ETH on our checkout is for people who chose that rail on a signed quote. A Burnaby book button should still take a card. A Montreal cart should still show HST when you sell into Ontario. We refuse crypto as the only rail. We refuse stock people photos in the wallet marketing too. No astronauts. No gold coins. The login page should look like the rest of the studio: type, illustration, a short sentence about the signature.

It is not support theatre. We will not spend a booked hour watching you install an extension if you only needed email. We will not take a weekday emergency call because you want to switch from Ethereum mainnet to a testnet for login — login does not use a testnet ritual. We will take the call if the nonce is empty, the database is down, and you cannot reach a live cart or the hour log on a deadline. Heat versus curiosity. Same three doors as everything else.

It is not a privacy escape hatch. Signed-in merchants still write purpose into forms. Students still do not paste customer exports into Hours. Analytics still need a sentence on the privacy page. WCAG still applies to the sign-in itself: labels, focus, a keyboard path to the email alternative. If the wallet button is a mystery box, we failed. The page should say: choose a role, sign a message, land in the dashboard. Short. True. Bilingual.

Once you are in, behave like any other logged-in person. Merchants update status, progress, and notes. Students finish orientation and log date, hours, and a factual description. Everyone reads appointments as Pacific time. Everyone pays invoices in CAD. Everyone uses email for a brief and the weekday phone for a dead production path. The wallet got you through the door. It does not change the studio.

If you change computers, sign the message again. If you revoke the site in the wallet, you will need to connect again. If you rotate addresses for privacy, tell us before you abandon the old one or the projects stay behind. If a staff member leaves the salon, do not hand them the seed and also keep using it. Move the merchant role to a remaining human, by email if that is simpler. Access is a person. An address is only a key.

Choose your role. Install a browser wallet if you want this door. Sign the message. Land in the matching dashboard. If the screen is blank, try email or wait until the database is reachable. If money is stuck on a weekday, call +1 (672) 200-7924. If you have a brief, write admin@sycgeeks.ca. That is signing in with a wallet at a Vancouver studio that still invoices in Canadian dollars and still answers a human line. The signature is small. The file you open is the work.