🧾 Documentation Status Ledger
This page defines the official document lifecycle statuses for Atlantis ITS documentation.
The source of truth is docs/registry.yml. This page is the human-readable compass so the Council, Nova, Forgejo, and MkDocs all interpret document state the same way.
Official Status Values
| Status | Meaning | Use When |
|---|---|---|
draft | Work in progress. Not authoritative yet. | A document is being written, imported, or roughed in. |
needs-review | Requires review before being treated as current guidance. | A document has conditional approval, unresolved risk notes, stale details, missing owner signoff, or needs scrutiny. |
active | Approved/current and safe to use as operational guidance. | A document is the current reference for live work. |
deprecated | Replaced or no longer preferred. | Keep visible for transition, but point users to the newer doc. |
archived | Historical record only. | Do not use for current operations. Retained for audit/history. |
blocked | Cannot move forward yet. | Waiting on a dependency, decision, missing artifact, secret rotation, build fix, or security review. |
Promotion Rules
draft→needs-reviewwhen the content is complete enough for Council or owner review.needs-review→activeonly when open conditions are closed.active→deprecatedwhen replaced by a newer doc but still useful for transition.deprecated→archivedwhen it is history only.- Any status →
blockedwhen a dependency or risk prevents safe use.
Current Scrutiny Note
Council Briefs with "approved with conditions" should remain needs-review in the registry until their conditions are actually closed. The prose inside the brief can still say approved with conditions, but the registry status should tell the team: do not treat this as fully operational until the gates are satisfied.
Registry Rule
Use only these six values in registry.yml:
status: draft
status: needs-review
status: active
status: deprecated
status: archived
status: blocked
No one-off status strings such as approved-with-conditions, pending, or complete. If more nuance is needed, add a review_note field instead.