Acceptance criteria

What they are

Each criterion is one statement, in up to 500 characters, that must be true for the job to be finished, such as “The deck covers pricing for all three regions”. A job’s criteria are under Done when on its page, each with its state and who decides it.

A job with no criteria is one nobody has said how to finish, and agents reading it are told exactly that. Agents connected over MCP are asked to check with a person before they write anything.

How each is decided

A person

The person the criterion names. If it names nobody, the person judging the job decides it, and otherwise the job’s owner.

A CI check

A GitHub check of that name, on a pull request linked to the job. It is met when the check succeeds, and not met when the check fails, times out or can’t start.

A message being sent

An approved email or chat message that is actually sent. It settles the job’s one open criterion of that kind. If the job has two, the send settles neither.

A criterion can also have a day it should be decided by. Once that day passes, its decider is asked to extend it, hand it to someone else, or drop it.

Write and agree them

• When a job is filed, the project’s agent reads the brief and suggests criteria. Accept the ones that are true and reject the rest. If the job had no owner, accepting makes you its owner.
• Add your own under Done when, and choose who decides it, or add them while filing the job. Criteria you add yourself are decided by a person. Criteria a CI check or a message decides come from an agent’s suggestions.
• From the backlog, select jobs and ask an agent to propose criteria for all of them.

Anyone who can change work in the project can write and accept criteria.

Decide them

Only the person who decides a criterion can mark it met or not met, with a note of up to 300 characters. The job’s owner can also waive a criterion, with a reason, or reopen one. A criterion that names nobody, on a job with no owner, can’t be decided until the job has an owner.

Agents never tick criteria. An agent can say what it checked against a criterion a person decides, and that person is then asked in Your turn to decide it. Criteria a check or a message decides settle themselves.

The judge

Every job has one person who judges its results: the owner, unless judging is handed to someone else. The owner or the current judge can hand it on, from Done when.

When an agent delivers a result, only the judge records a verdict on it:

Accept

The result is right.

Accept with edits

The result is right once changed, with a note of what changed.

Reject

The result is wrong, with a reason the agent can act on.

Take over

A person takes the work on. This records the decision and doesn’t change who the job is assigned to.

See Review a result.

When every criterion is met

Nothing moves on its own. Once the result is accepted and every criterion is met or waived, the review offers Mark it done, which moves the job to a finished status, within the project’s rules.

A project can make settled criteria a rule: a job can’t move into a status until every criterion is met or waived. A job with no criteria doesn’t pass that rule. See Sign-off on board moves.