# Production promotion state machine

Move work through observable states. Do not mark a state complete from an agent summary alone.

## Scoped

- The issue names the visible problem and acceptance criteria.
- Experimental work is explicitly excluded.
- The production diff is known.

## Built

- Implementation and focused tests are complete.
- Data operations are idempotent.
- Rollback behavior is documented.

## Staged

- Required data and schema state exists in staging.
- Relevant tests and the production build pass.
- A browser walk verifies the deployed path.

## Independently reviewed

- A reviewer with fresh context inspects the complete diff.
- Negative paths and workflow ordering are tested.
- Findings are fixed and rechecked.

## Ready for production PR

- The release contains only approved changes.
- Dependency gates bind workflow success to release ancestry.
- CI is green. No merge has occurred.

## Approved

- A human owner explicitly authorizes rollout.
- The final diff and CI state have not changed since approval.

## Released

- The approved merge path is used.
- Read-only checks confirm the production target.

## Learned

- Each failure mode becomes a test, gate, skill, playbook, or monitor.