Thanks for these helpful responses. Where the NPC has a specific field for AGI but also asks separately for income, would you use total gross income or W-2 box 1 income?
The CSS Profile actually seems easier to understand, or at least the 21-22 version was - in addition to line-by-line numbers from the 1040, it separates out how much the parent earned from work (100, in my example), how much the parent contributed to tax-deferred retirement accounts (8), and other untaxed income (0).
Unfortunately, many NPCs replace the latter two categories with one generic “untaxed income” field, and the instructions vary about what should be included there. It’s especially frustrating that running these NPCs with Option 2 above rather than Option 1 creates a substantial reduction in estimated aid, as much as 13k for some schools. I suspect something is being double-counted in that instance, but it could also be that Option 1 somehow understates actual resources in the eyes of the schools.