Set up stages

A stage says what is happening to a story right now: someone is working out what to build, it is in development, it is waiting for review, it has shipped. Stages belong to the project, so every map in it uses the same set. The Kanban view shows them as columns, and your agent moves stories between them.

The stages a new project starts with

Stage	What it means
Idea	A thought or request nobody has looked into yet. It moves on once you decide it is worth doing.
In Analysis	Working out why this is needed and what exactly to build: the scenario, the constraints, the acceptance criteria. Done when the criteria are written on the story.
In Design	Preparing the mockup, the copy and the interface states. A story with no interface skips this stage.
UX/UI review	The product owner checks that the mockup solves the problem. Approved, the story is ready to build; with comments, it goes back to design.
Ready to Dev	Clear what to do: the criteria are written and the design is approved. The story can be picked up.
In Development	The story is being built: code, tests, docs. An agent sets this stage before it starts writing code.
Automated AI QA	Development is finished and an AI agent tests the story: it walks the acceptance criteria and scenarios and runs the tests. A bug sends the story back to development.
Stage review	A person checks the story on the staging server against its acceptance criteria. Accepted, it ships; if not, it goes back to development.
Production	Shipped and available to users. The story is closed.

Ready to Dev is the default stage, and Production is the only one marked Closed. These descriptions are part of the project: change them to match how you actually work.

Where to change stages

Open the project and click Development Statuses. The page lists the stages in order with their flags, their agent code and how many stories sit in each.

• Add a stage with Add stage. Give it a name, a description, an icon and a color.
• Edit a stage from its row menu with Edit.
• Reorder by dragging rows. Kanban columns and status lists follow this order.
• Make one the default with Make default stage. There is always exactly one default stage: it is where the stories of a deleted stage go.
• Mark a stage Closed in its dialog when stories in it count as done. Any stage can be Closed.

Owners, admins and members can add, edit and reorder stages. Only owners and admins can delete them. See Roles and permissions.

Write a description for each stage

The description says what happens in the stage and when a story moves on, in up to 500 characters. People read it on the stages page, and your agent reads it before it moves a story, to pick the stage that matches what is happening. A good description answers two questions: what is being done here, and what has to be true to move on.

What Closed changes

A story in a Closed stage counts as done:

• your agent can’t move a story there while any of its acceptance criteria are unchecked (see Write acceptance criteria your agent can check);
• a release is complete when all its stories are in Closed stages;
• the Statistics page treats stories in Closed stages as finished and everything else as open.

A review stage that is not Closed, like Stage review, lets the agent hand a story over before a person has checked the last criteria.

Delete a stage

Deleting a stage moves its stories to the default stage. Deleting the default stage first asks you to pick a new default, and its stories go there. The stage stays in the trash for 30 days; restoring it moves its stories back.

Four stages carry a service code with a lock: Idea (todo), Ready to Dev (ready-for-dev), In Development (in-progress) and Production (done). Your agent finds these stages by the code, so you can rename them but not delete them. The first time a story enters the in-progress stage, its agent estimate freezes (see Agent estimates in minutes).

Let your agent set up the stages

Ask your agent to set up the stages for your project. It reads the current stages with their descriptions and proposes a flow first: each stage with its description, the order, which one is Closed and which is the default. It changes the stages only after you agree. Slicemap can’t check that you agreed, so if your agent changes stages without asking, tell it to propose first.

Your agent can add, edit and reorder stages and make one the default. It deletes a stage when you ask and its key belongs to an owner or admin, the same as on the stages page: the stage goes to the trash and its stories to the default stage.