Twelve Day Officers (Jian Chu) 建除 Glossary

The twelve-officer daily cycle of traditional date selection — 建除滿平定執破危成收開閉 — keyed to the solar-term month and the day branch.

Jian Chu · 建除十二神 · jiàn chú · twelve day officers · 建除满平定执破危成收开闭

Source credibility (S/A/B/C/X): S    Rule computability (A/B/C): A

What it is

Date selection （擇日） labels every day with one of twelve officers: 建滿平定執破危成收開閉 (Establish, Full, Balanced, Settled, Held, Broken, Danger, Success, Harvest, Open, Closed). The officer is found by counting from the day whose branch equals the month branch, so the whole cycle is keyed to the solar-term month — use the lunar month and an entire month of officers shifts.

School differences

The officer cycle itself is stable; the classical disagreements sit around it — whether and how to combine it with the yellow/black path (the Xieji Bianfang Shu says they cannot be reconciled at all), and which officer combinations count as favourable for which activities. The engine computes the officers as markers and refuses to collapse them into a single verdict.

How this engine computes it

• Month branch is computed astronomically from the exact sectional term instant; day branch from the continuous 60-cycle.
• The officer appears on every almanac day and in the public API (/v1/calendar) with ruleset provenance attached.
• Golden-month regression locks the cycle (spot-checked first-day officers across months); the two-system caveat is quoted on the same page, not buried.

Related entries

Yellow–Black Path · Six Officers (Liù Yào) · Solar Terms · School Dispute Register

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