Find your Kua number and your four directions.

Your Kua number is a single digit between 1 and 9, skipping 5. It comes from your birth year and your gender at birth. The calculator handles 5 separately, so you do not have to think about it.

What the number does is small and useful. It sorts you into one of two groups, and each group has four directions the tradition reads as supportive and four it asks you to handle with care.

If you have ten seconds, find your Kua number. It returns the four directions the tradition reads as supportive for you, and the four it asks you to handle with care.

That is the whole input.

East group and West group.

East group is 1, 3, 4, 9. West group is 2, 6, 7, 8. The supportive directions for one group are the cautious ones for the other. This is the biggest split in the system, which is why the calculator leads with it.

East group's supportive directions are the ones the tradition associates with motion and outward work - learning, building, being seen. West group's are the ones the tradition associates with gathering and inward work - deepening, finishing, holding the harvest. That does not mean every East group person is loud. Plenty are quiet. It is a description of the qualities the tradition associates with your favourable directions, not a personality test.

What your four directions are for.

The four favourable directions each carry a job. Sheng Qi "generating qi" is the active push direction, the one the tradition points toward for launch seasons and important work. Tian Yi "Heavenly Doctor" is the recovery direction, the default headboard for ordinary seasons. Yan Nian "long years" is the relationship direction, the one couples are typically pointed toward. Fu Wei "sitting in stability," the anchor direction, is the solitary-work direction, for slow and deep tasks.

The other four have names too: Huo Hai, Wu Gui, Liu Sha, Jue Ming. The tradition treats them as lower-priority placements rather than anything to fear. They are simply the spots you assign last, after the supportive four have homes.

You do not need to memorise any of this to start. The calculator returns your four supportive directions in everyday words. The names are useful later, when you want to choose between two rooms that otherwise look equivalent.

What about a mixed-group household.

About half of all couples are mixed, and the tradition does not ask you to optimise the whole home for one person. The move is to assign functions instead. The shared bedroom can favour one partner's relationship direction, and the tradition points couples toward Yan Nian. The home office favours the person who actually uses it. The head-of-household dining seat favours whoever sits there most. In a shared home you cannot optimise for everyone at once. Pick the main user of each room.

Where to go next.

If you have ten seconds and have not yet, find your Kua number.

If you have an afternoon, read the three orientations the tradition weights most - the bed, the chair, and the door, in that order.

If you want the deeper read, the methodology page walks through the Kua formula, the full Eight Mansions table, and the Later Heaven Bagua.

A printable personal compass keeps your four directions and your floor plan together if you want one reference.