Clearing the gates

All four have to clear. This is not a score and there is no averaging — a piece of work that is true, necessary and constructive but wildly disproportionate does not go out, and the same applies to any other single failure.

A held gate is the check doing its job, which is worth saying because the instinct is to treat it as a problem with the check. It is not a veto on the work either. Nearly always the resolution is to change the work until the gate clears: soften a claim you cannot support, cut the part that was not necessary, add the route forward, make it smaller.

Recording the check matters for the same reason recording the test does. In three months the useful question is what you considered at the time, and an unrecorded judgement leaves nothing behind. The app stores which gates cleared against the project, and the count feeds your public record if you publish one.

One habit worth building: run this before you think you need it. The gates are most useful on the piece of work you are confident about, because that is the one you will not otherwise examine.