11. Where is the state of the work kept?

Three records hold the state of the work, and each answers a different question. The specification says what one change should do. The ticket system, such as Jira, says who is doing what, and how far the work has got. The knowledge graph says what the application does today. The ticket carries each change from start to finish. When a specification is written, a hook in the ticket system runs impact analysis and attaches the report to the ticket. Every later step updates the ticket's status and attaches its results, such as test results and a second impact analysis after coding. At the end, the final impact analysis uses the whole history of the ticket. The ticket works the same way whether people, agents or both do the work. Teams design the workflow between the steps to fit their own process.

On the site: Three Sources of Truth · How the Ticket Carries the Change