Gates
A gate is a checklist executed in minutes, not a committee. Gates are how RAPID keeps speed safe: they sit at each phase transition and confirm the work is ready to move on, with as much of the check automated in CI as possible so humans review exceptions, not basics.
The operational gate cards live in the toolkit at toolkit/gates/; this page explains the model.
Principles
- Automate the checkable. Anything a machine can verify — coverage, scans, lint, accessibility regressions, stale docs — runs in CI. Human sign-off is reserved for intent, domain correctness and test honesty.
- Scale the evidence, not the gate. The same gate runs on a major feature and a one-hour bugfix; the bugfix simply has less to check. Gates never disappear (see scaled variants).
- Waivers are visible. Every gate has a documented waiver path — time-boxed, named approver, logged in a register, with an expiry after which the gate re-blocks. Speed pressure bends the process visibly or not at all.
- Some things are never waivable. Security-critical findings, rollback verification, and domain sign-off cannot be waived.
The gates
| Gate | Transition | Owner | Card |
|---|---|---|---|
| Definition of Ready | Definition → Design | Product Owner | toolkit/gates/definition-of-ready.md |
| Design Review | Design → Tech selection / Build | Design | toolkit/gates/design-review.md |
| Tech Selection sign-off | Tech selection → Build | Senior Dev (Lead) | toolkit/gates/tech-selection.md |
| Merge gate | every PR in Build | Senior Dev (Lead) | toolkit/gates/build-merge.md |
| Refinement Exit | Refinement → Flow-state / Production | Lead + PO | toolkit/gates/refinement-exit.md |
| Production Readiness | Flow-state → Production | DevOps | toolkit/gates/production-readiness.md |
Each card names its entry and exit criteria, the evidence required, what CI automates versus what a human signs, and who may (and may not) waive it. The card links above open the rendered card (a single source of truth — generated from the toolkit, not restated here). Add or amend a card from toolkit/gates/_gate-card-template.md.
Definition of Ready
Confirms Definition produced an unambiguous, testable, domain-validated PFD before Design begins — SME sign-off recorded, acceptance criteria a test agent can build from, glossary complete, NFR/compliance and commercial framing stated.
Design Review
Confirms the design is complete and buildable — flows cover every PFD scenario including error states, the data model passes Data + Security review, and every screen maps to design-system components — before Build agents start.
Tech Selection sign-off
Locks the stack (default-first from the radar) and reference architecture, recorded as an ADR, so Build starts inside a known scaffold.
Merge gate
The enforceable definition of done for AI-generated code, as policy-as-code: coverage and mutation thresholds on changed code, zero critical scan findings, docs updated in the same PR, no unapproved new dependencies, ACs met with honest tests, and a human always merges.
Refinement Exit
Confirms the directed refinement passes (performance, accessibility, resilience, observability) actually raised quality against ISO/IEC 25010 — acceptable is now good.
Production Readiness
Defines what "production-ready" means and checks it: security gates green, SLOs and alerting live, rollback tested, runbooks handed to Support, release comms approved. The deploy itself is an irreversible action requiring a named human.