Planned adaptation projects channel climate finance to rural communities, yet the pathways connecting intervention design to household participation are often assumed rather than examined. We ask how participating farmers evaluated an externally designed adaptation bundle and what made engagement appear worthwhile on their terms. Drawing on sixteen gender-segregated focus group discussions with farmers who had opted into the project, and interviews with project implementers and agricultural officials, we examine an Adaptation Fund–supported project in Uttarakhand, India. We bring the Model of Private Proactive Adaptation to Climate Change into dialogue with the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework to develop a livelihood-embedded, multi-rational framework for analyzing adaptation appraisal. We find that participating farmers evaluated project components through five overlapping rationalities: economic, institutional, labor, social and symbolic, and knowledge. Their appraisals reflected the value of tangible and controllable assets, the fit of project demands with existing responsibilities, the accessibility and credibility of implementing organizations, the social meanings attached to participation, and whether knowledge could be acted upon under existing material and market conditions. Gender differences were most visible in labor appraisal, as women’s and men’s groups described different patterns of participation and evaluated project demands in relation to different livelihood responsibilities. We further identify perceived transition risk in uptake, understood as the subjective judgement that committing time, labor or resources to an intervention may cause livelihood harm or leave a household exposed before anticipated benefits become secure, actionable or durable. In participants’ accounts, compensation during the transition period, intermediate benefits and sustained institutional support made this exposure more manageable and engagement more worthwhile. The framework is diagnostic rather than predictive, showing how appraisal forms part of livelihood decision-making and suggesting why the same intervention may appear worthwhile under some livelihood conditions but not others.