Understanding the Bracket Guard
The single worst thing tournament software can do is rebuild a bracket that's already running — erasing recorded wins minutes after they happened. The bracket guard exists to make that impossible. Once a bracket contains any recorded result, it is locked against regeneration and deletion.
What counts as a result
A bracket is considered "started" the moment any of its matches has:
- a winner declared,
- a status of in progress or completed, or
- any score recorded — kumite points, kata scores, or flag results.
For kata ranking lists, a completed or scored performance counts the same way. Byes alone do not count — a freshly generated bracket with byes is still fully editable.
What the guard blocks
- Deletion — attempting to delete a started bracket is refused with the message: "This bracket has recorded results and cannot be deleted. Edit results directly."
- Automatic regeneration — when roster changes trigger bracket regeneration (a late approval, a removal), the system regenerates only untouched brackets and silently skips any bracket with results.
- Reassignment side effects — division re-assignment skips divisions whose brackets have results, so running Run Reassignment… mid-tournament can't scramble live divisions.
- Unapproval — a competitor in a started bracket can't be unapproved out of it.
No setting to configure: the guard is always on. It's not a warning you can click through — the blocked operations simply refuse.
Intentionally starting over
Sometimes you really do need to redo a bracket — a scoring device recorded matches against the wrong division, or a false start on the wrong roster. The escape hatch is explicit: reset the bracket. Resetting clears every recorded result ("Bracket reset — all results cleared."), which unlocks the bracket for regeneration or deletion.
Because the reset is a separate, deliberate action that visibly wipes results, you can never lose live data by accident — only by choosing to.