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EN Current language: English

Core concepts

Zones, rules, and slots are the three building blocks of every SlotSmith setup — here's how they fit together.

On this page

Zones

A zone is a named delivery or pickup region — for example “Downtown same-day” or “Store pickup — Main St.” Zones are the top-level object everything else attaches to. See Creating zones.

Rules

A rule attaches to a zone and controls when and how often slots are generated: cutoff time, lead time, capacity per slot, and blackout dates. A zone with no rules never produces bookable slots. See Rule basics.

Slots

A slot is a single bookable window a customer selects at checkout, generated from a zone’s rules. Slots are never edited directly — change the rule and SlotSmith regenerates the affected slots.

How they combine

plaintext 
Zone "Downtown same-day"
  └─ Rule: Mon–Fri, cutoff 14:00, capacity 12
       └─ Slot: Tue 16:00–18:00 (4/12 booked)
       └─ Slot: Wed 16:00–18:00 (0/12 booked)

Understanding this hierarchy makes the rest of the guide much easier to follow.