Lifecycle

Definition

The Lifecycle is the spine of a concern.

It tells you where the concern is, what kind of movement is possible next, and what conditions govern that movement. It does not mean every action is pre-scripted. The lifecycle is the orienting structure, not the full experience.

What it includes

• current state
• meaningful transitions
• readiness or blocking conditions
• key obligations and deadlines
• points where judgement matters

First-pass complaint lifecycle

The complaint exemplar needs a lifecycle concrete enough to prototype but small enough to feel:

flowchart LR
  A[Received] --> B[Acknowledged]
  B --> C[Assessing]
  C --> D[Investigating]
  D --> E[Response prepared]
  E --> F[Response sent]
  F --> G[Closed]
  G --> H[Reopened]

This is deliberately a spine, not a full workflow definition.

At each state, the user should be able to answer:

1. what does this concern need now?
2. what is blocked?
3. what is human-only?
4. what may Whisper prepare?

What it is not

• Not a task list
• Not a workflow canvas
• Not a queue of approvals
• Not a report-only status field

If the lifecycle cannot be understood without opening the workflow, the workflow has swallowed the spine.

Design tests it implies

• Can the user tell the current state in one glance?
• Does the lifecycle clarify the next movement without prescribing every click?
• Are blocked states visible before the user hunts for them?
• Does the lifecycle make Flow Cues more useful rather than redundant?