Part 3 · Operate
Content states
The twelve states a piece of content can be in, and what the database refuses.
01What it is
Every artifact sits in one of twelve states. Software controls which state follows which; the model makes judgements inside a step and never decides the next one.
02Why it exists
Content used to move through whichever function ran next, which meant the sequence existed as a convention. A convention cannot refuse anything.
Two rules matter and both fall out of the table rather than being checked separately. A draft cannot reach approved without passing the gates, because the only way out of drafted is into them. Nothing published can be unpublished, only measured.
The database enforces the rule that must hold against every writer including a direct SQL session: no approval row, no approved state.
03How to use it
- 01Read the state on a card to know what it is waiting for.
- 02"Waiting on you" means it cleared every gate and needs a human.
- 03"Being rewritten" means the loop has it.
- 04"Ready to look at" means a visual artifact has been rendered and you should approve what will actually publish.
04What good looks like
- You give it
- An approved post whose approval row is deleted.
- You get
- The database trigger drops it back to passed.
- Why
- A trigger refuses the approved, scheduled, published and measured states without an approval row, and a second one handles the deletion.
Derived from the rules in the code
05What weak looks like, and what it costs
- You give it
- An attempt to set an artifact to published directly in SQL.
- You get
- Refused by the trigger.
- Why
- The rule is enforced in the database rather than in application code.
Derived from the rules in the code