> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.useharmonia.xyz/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Job state machine reference

> Canonical Harmonia stages, gates, terminal states, and transition ownership.

The canonical stage vocabulary is declared by `STAGES` in `src/lib/types.ts`.

```text theme={"system"}
queued → ingest → transcribe → understand → strategize
→ awaiting_strategy_approval → plan → draft → awaiting_approval
→ publish → verify → learn → complete
```

`failed` is terminal until an eligible deterministic retry creates the next authorized transition. Brief-only jobs may enter later work without media ingestion, but persisted state still identifies the actual stage.

| Gate                         | Required record                                        | On rejection                                                         |
| ---------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `awaiting_strategy_approval` | Strategy decision bound to current digest and revision | One feedback-bound Ryan revision; second rejection ends the job      |
| `awaiting_approval`          | Per-action decision bound to exact payload digest      | Action is skipped or job completes according to deterministic policy |

Only application transactions advance the stage. Agents, Pub/Sub messages, logs, and external providers cannot do so directly. See [Production flow](/diagrams/production-flow) and [State ownership](/state-ownership).

The evidence packet is assembled and persisted during verification. It is an artifact and audit event, not a job stage.