Promoting between stages
In short
Promotion runs a readiness gate — tests, health, architecture and stage-specific checks — that can pass, pass with warnings, or block; it is a check on the project, not a deploy button.
Moving from one stage to the next runs a gate: a readiness check over the whole project, not a confirmation dialog.
What a gate looks at
- Tests — do they exist for the paths that matter, and do they pass?
- Health — the project’s own checks: build, types, dependencies, obvious gaps.
- Architecture — does the project still match the profile it declared, or has it drifted?
- Stage-specific requirements — a real backend before Build is done; a rehearsed migration and an accepted cost estimate before Live.
Three outcomes
- Pass — the project moves.
- Pass with warnings — it moves, and the warnings are recorded. Read them; they are the list of things you have decided to live with.
- Blocked — something must be fixed first. The gate names it.
When a gate blocks you
Fix the finding. Do not look for a way around it — the whole value of the gate is that it is the same check for everyone, every time, including on the day you are in a hurry.
If you believe a finding is wrong, that is worth reporting: a gate that blocks correct projects is a defect in Sapilon, and reporting it is free.
Going backwards
Projects can move back a stage. It is not a failure state — discovering in Rehearsal that the data model is wrong is exactly what Rehearsal is for, and fixing it in Build is cheaper than fixing it in Live. Infrastructure for the abandoned stage is torn down so it stops costing you money.