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Pattern Canonical

Status reflects reality

A folder of Draft plans, half of which shipped, is a folder nobody can trust.

Authors
Michael Staton
Augmented with
Claude Code on Claude Opus 5.5
Tags
Status · Lifecycle

What it is 

Draft → In-Review → Signed-Off → Implementing → Shipped
        · Partially-Shipped · Deferred · Stale · Superseded · Archived

Companion fields move with it: Shipped sets date_first_published ; Partially-Shipped adds a dated Remaining work section; Deferred adds deferral_note ; Superseded adds superseded_by .

Why

status is the one field everything else leans on. It's how an agent decides whether a spec is safe to build from, and how a person decides whether a plan is still live.

How

  • Change status when something real happened. Never as tidying.

  • Ask before changing a doc someone else owns.

  • Signed-Off comes from a person, out loud, not from silence.

In the kit

/cv:implement refuses to build against a doc without checkable acceptance criteria, sets Implementing , and closes honestly. /cv:reflect writes the as-built state.