The two halves of the layout
The first six cards form the cross and describe the situation: its centre, what crosses it, what underlies it, what is passing, what is possible and what comes next. Read together they are a picture of the thing as it stands.
The last four form the staff and describe you in relation to it: your own approach, the environment around you, your hopes and fears, and the outcome. The staff is where a reading usually becomes useful, because it is the half you can act on.
The two positions people misread
The fifth card is commonly labelled the crown or the best outcome, and it is routinely read as a prediction. It is not. It describes the ceiling of the current situation, which is a different and more useful thing.
The ninth is hopes and fears, and the reason it is one position rather than two is that in most situations they are the same thing. A card here that seems to be both is behaving correctly.
When ten cards is too many
A Celtic Cross drawn on a vague question produces ten cards that can be arranged into any story you like, which is worse than useless. The spread rewards a specific question and punishes a broad one.
If the reading feels like it could apply to anything, that is the signal to narrow the question and use three cards instead.
What this reading is and is not
The cards are drawn by a random number generator seeded once per reading. There is no server, no account and no record of your question; the whole draw is rebuilt from the number in the address bar, which is why the link reopens the same cards.
What a spread does well is give a structured way to look at a situation you already know something about. It is a prompt, not a source of information, and nothing here should be used in place of medical, legal or financial advice.
Questions people ask about this
How is the layout organised?
Six cards form the cross and describe the situation itself: its centre, what crosses it, what underlies it, what is passing, the ceiling of what is available and what arrives next. Four more form the staff and describe you in relation to it, covering your approach, the people around you, hopes and fears, and where it settles. The split is the point, since the staff is the half you can do something about.
Is ten cards too many for a first reading?
For most people, yes. Ten cards is a lot to hold at once, and it is the spread beginners attempt earliest and abandon fastest. If you have not read much before, three cards will teach you more, because you can actually keep all of them in mind while you interpret.
How long should I spend on it?
Half an hour is realistic, and rushing it produces a blur. A workable method is to read the six cross cards as one picture, take a break, and then read the staff separately rather than working through all ten in a single pass.
Does it use reversed cards?
Yes by default, with a toggle to switch them off. In a ten-card layout reversals add a great deal of ambiguity, so some readers turn them off here even when they use them elsewhere. Read with them, an inverted card usually means the same theme obstructed or overdone.
Can I keep the reading?
Yes, and with this spread it is worth doing. The shuffle is a seeded random number generator and the reading rebuilds exactly from the link, so the same URL always shows the same ten cards. That makes it practical to read the cross today and the staff tomorrow, or to send the link to someone and discuss the same layout.
The reading seems to fit everything I ask of it. What went wrong?
The question was too broad. Ten cards drawn on a vague question can be arranged into almost any story, which tells you nothing. Narrow it to one situation and draw again, or use three cards instead.