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You are setting up Planning settings, so you need to know what Hazel already assumes and which layer can change each value. Every default below is what a firm gets before configuring anything. Scope names the layers that can change a value. Firm is the Solver assumptions and Market assumptions screens in Planning settings, a firm owner’s surface. Persona is a Client persona’s own value, replacing the firm’s for matching households. Plan is one plan only. Each plan’s Appendix records the winning layer in its Applied settings block: Firm, Persona with its name, or This plan.

Probability and simulation

Ranges: Success threshold 50% to 100% in steps of 1. Monte Carlo simulations 100 to 5,000 in steps of 100.
Where a projection models a figure above the ceiling, the plan prints >99% with a short note under the figure saying a cap applied.

Fees and taxes

Ranges: Advisory fee 0% to 3% in steps of 0.05. Terminal heir tax rate 0% to 50% in steps of 1.

Decumulation strategy

Range: Default reserve length 0 to 10 years in steps of 1. The three free-text boxes ship filled rather than empty, and Solver assumptions quotes each word for word.

What an advisor can change on one plan

Plan settings in the plan’s top bar stages values for one plan, and Apply and replan in its footer rebuilds the plan with them. The panel belongs to the chat plan view, so from the household Financial Planning tab use Open chat in the top bar first. Editable there: Success threshold, Reserve length, Roth conversion strategy (six choices), and one row for each market row the firm has hand-edited, so a firm that has hand-edited nothing gets no market rows. Withdrawal guardrails is displayed for reading, and changes at the firm or persona layer instead. A read-only row names the assumption set the plan drew on, and it reads as Hazel’s default set rather than the name anyone typed on the Market assumptions screen, which is not a sign your firm’s edits were ignored.

Market assumptions

All firm settings, though an advisor can change hand-edited rows for one plan. The set arrives fully populated, with nothing hand-edited yet. At the shipped granularity: Switch Returns to by-sub-asset-class and nine rows appear instead: four equity classes, four fixed-income classes and cash. Rows are edited on their own, so changing one leaves the Simple figure where it was. Volatility opens at by-sub-asset-class detail, listing all nine rows, from cash at 0.7% up to US small cap at 21.1%. Switch Taxes to by-sub-asset-class and the blended row splits into Ordinary income at 24%, Long-term capital gains at 15% and Qualified dividends at 15%. Statutory brackets are applied as written, not a firm setting, and the card is badged with the bracket year. Row ranges: returns 0% to 15%, volatility 0% to 30%, inflation 0% to 10%, tax rates 0% to 50%.

Guardrails

Two hard rules ship, in the card for things Hazel must never do:
  • “Never recommend a specific named security or ticker.”
  • “Never propose a Roth conversion that pushes the client into the next IRMAA tier.”
A persona can add guardrails on top, and no persona, plan or chat request can lift one. A firm owner can remove either shipped rule from the base template.

Layout and shape

Every module outside those eight is off until you add it, meaning the topic gets no dedicated treatment. Exact locks Allow additions, the switch beside the mode, off. Strictness covers what each of the three modes does.

Client disclaimer

Nothing ships. The Client disclaimer card opens with a paragraph Hazel drafted as a preview: until you edit it, plans and PDFs carry no footer at all. Type your own wording, or edit the draft, and it renders word for word under every plan and in the exported PDF. A Restore Hazel default button brings the drafted paragraph back.

Persona overrides

The three pre-installed Client personas differ from the firm defaults above: They are yours to review, rename, edit or delete. Anything a persona leaves alone inherits the firm value.

Also shipping empty

The base template carries no Hazel instructions until you add one, and no Planning assumptions until you add a label and value row.

Where to go next