Rootline

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  Rootline: a money plan for immigrant families. It never asks for SSNs, account numbers or visa documents.

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  The family plan: 3 steps for this month, chosen by plain rules from your answers. Every step links to a source.

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  Kids' timeline: a countdown to 21 for H-4 kids, with the college money decisions to make before their status changes.

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  Check advice: paste a forwarded tip and each claim is checked against 20 sources, with what to do instead.

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  Safety fund: save 2 months of costs to cover the grace period of up to 60 days if an H-1B job ends.

Inspiration

When I turned 21, I aged out of my H-4 dependent visa and had to switch to F-1. The deadline was in the rules for years, but nobody told my family what it would mean for our money. Immigrant families make decisions like this with advice from WhatsApp groups, relatives and apps selling their own card. I wanted a tool that shows families the money decisions they don't know are coming, and that earns trust by showing its sources.

What it does

Rootline asks a few questions about the parent and each child, then gives the family five steps:

1. Plan: a credit plan for the parent, three steps for this month, questions to ask any bank, a safety fund calculator for families whose visa depends on a job, and free tax help.
2. Kids' timeline: each child's milestones up to 21, including how visa status can change college costs and who can work, a proof-of-funds savings tracker, and questions to bring to an immigration attorney.
3. Head start: how adding a child as an authorized user can start their credit history, with the risks spelled out.
4. Check advice: paste a forwarded message and get a verdict on each claim, with a source and what to do instead.
5. Ask: questions answered only from 20 checked sources, in five languages.

How we built it

Rootline is one web page built with HTML, CSS and JavaScript, hosted on GitHub Pages. A rules engine builds the plan, timeline and savings math, so the same family always gets the same answer. The facts come from 20 source cards checked against the CFPB, IRS, SSA, FTC, DHS, USCIS, the Department of Justice, the Department of Education and the Federal Reserve. Check advice and Ask use Claude with strict rules: cite a source for every claim, say "I don't know" when no source covers it, and never give immigration advice. I built it with Claude's help.

Challenges we ran into

The hardest part was being useful without giving legal advice. Rootline flags each milestone, covers the money side, and hands the legal question to an attorney with a ready-made question list. Making AI answers trustworthy took grounding, citations and confidence labels, plus a second fact-check with Gemini that caught a mistake about F-1 work rules.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Every claim links to a source. Numbers come from code, not AI. It never asks for Social Security numbers, and it never pushes a bank or card, including our sponsor's. It's accessible too: a text size control, keyboard navigation and high contrast.

What we learned

Trust has to be built into the product, not just claimed. Showing where each fact comes from, and admitting what the tool doesn't know, matters more than sounding confident.

What's next for Rootline

Goal-specific plans like renting or buying a car, a side-by-side view so parents and kids read the plan in two languages, more languages reviewed by native speakers, and live answers on the public site.

Built With

• claude
• css
• github
• html
• javascript