SLI States

This map keeps every initiative’s SLI state and guardrails obvious. Place your initiative or Read the Verify-in-10 guide.

State	Entry signals	Exit signals	SLI guardrail
Framing	Problem statement logged, owner + decider named, success metric sketched	Scope, exit metric, and next artifact agreed; risks logged	Age in Framing < 5 business days
Build	Acceptance criteria frozen, team staffed, backlog item sized ≤ 3 days	Working change behind flag or draft PR merged to default branch	No more than 3 concurrent Build streams per team
Verify	Change deployed to test/stage, telemetry hooks on, release note draft started	Acceptance checks green, Sev-1/2 regressions = 0, release note final	Each Verify cycle closes inside 48 hours
Ready	Verification finished, release owner assigned, rollback tested	Pack shipped or feature enabled for target audience	Release queue < 2 business days; < 1 skipped retro follow-up
Live / Watch	Change is in prod or public	Metrics stable for the agreed watch window	Error budget consumed < 20%; page/issue feedback triaged daily

How to use this map

Tag every initiative in the planning doc or kanban we expose publicly. If a stream lacks a state, it is invisible by default.
Review once a week (calendar it) and note anything that breached its SLI. A breached guardrail is a decision prompt, not a scarlet letter.
Escalate by state:
- Framing stuck? Re-run the 20-minute handover drill.
- Build overloaded? Drop the lowest-impact stream until WIP <= 3.
- Verify or Ready stalled? Use the Fix it fast index to clear the blocker or page an owner.
Publish the board (screenshot or embed) wherever leadership expects status so the SLI legend is obvious.

Age-based SLIs (Framing, Ready) — Track the first day in-state; anything older than the guardrail gets highlighted in yellow until resolved.
WIP SLIs (Build) — Count human owners, not cards. Two people pairing on one change = one stream.
Time-bound SLIs (Verify) — Start the clock when code hits the validation environment, not when somebody “starts testing.”
Quality SLIs (Live/Watch) — Tie them to the page or service telemetry. If we promise error budget < 20%, paste the chart right under the status block.

Add a new state only when you have a distinct entry/exit signal and a measurable guardrail.
Retire a state if it lives purely in tooling (e.g., CI automation) and the audience never acts on it.
Re-run pnpm run nav:sync after editing so the Start navigation stays honest.

State visibility map — Publish this table in your shared status doc.
Transition operating promises — Define what happens when an SLI breaches.
State ledger — Note state changes when you tag a release.
Verify-in-10 guide + 10-minute lab — Default gate before moving from Verify to Live.