# Statuses and progress

> How a Status reflects an Item's health, how its value tracks progress, and how the two connect through auto-status, rollups, and update cadence

Canonical: https://docs.caskcode.io/strategy-hub/statuses-and-progress/

Status answers "how is this going?" Progress answers "how far has it moved?" Every Strategic Item carries both, and Strategy Hub can keep them in step or let you set each by hand. This page explains the model—what a **Status** is, how an Item's value updates, and how the two connect.

## Status, category, and Status Set

A **Status** is the named lifecycle state of an Item—the words on its pill. The *name* is configurable, so one workspace reads "On Track" where another reads "Green". The *category* underneath is fixed. Every Status belongs to one of four:

- **Not started** — the Item hasn't begun.
- **Healthy** — the Item is progressing as it should.
- **Not healthy** — the Item is in trouble.
- **Done** — the Item is complete.

The category, not the name, is what Strategy Hub reasons about. It colors the pill, drives the Status segment bars across the views, and decides whether an Item counts toward risk or completion.

A **Status Set** is an ordered collection of Statuses plus the auto-status rules that map progress to one of them. Each Item Type points to a Status Set, which supplies the Statuses that Item may use. Two sets typically ship with each framework—one for leaf Items like Key Results and Measures, one for parents like Objectives and Strategies. See [Configure types and status sets](https://docs.caskcode.io/strategy-hub/configure-types-and-status-sets).

## How a Status updates

A Status updates one of two ways, and the Item's Type decides which are available.

- **Manual** — the Owner picks the Status. Auto-status still computes a suggestion in the background, but doesn't enforce it. When the manual Status and the suggestion disagree, Strategy Hub raises a [Status mismatch Insight](https://docs.caskcode.io/strategy-hub/insights) so the two can be reconciled.
- **Automatic** — Strategy Hub recomputes the Status every time progress changes, reading the value against the Status Set's auto-status rules.

## Auto-status and pace

Auto-status turns a number into a Status through the Status Set's **status workflow**. The workflow is a row of progress segments—a range like 0–25% maps to one Status, 25–70% to the next, 70–100% to another—and as an Item's value climbs, its Status moves from one segment to the next. Three special designations cover the edges: a starting Status applied before the start date, a completed Status applied when progress reaches 100%, and a failed Status applied once the end date has passed.

The workflow grades the value against *expected* progress, not just the raw number. An Item is expected to be roughly halfway to target halfway through its planning window, so an Item tracking below where it should be by this point reads as behind pace even when its value is still rising. That's the finding the [Behind pace Insight](https://docs.caskcode.io/strategy-hub/insights) reports.

![A Status Set's status workflow editor: a progress bar split into At Risk (0–25%), Off Track (25–70%), and On Track (70–100%) segments, above three special status designations for the start date, completion, and a passed deadline](media/statuses-and-progress-status-workflow.webp)

## How a value updates

An Item's value is the number its progress bar measures against its start and target. It updates one of three ways, and again the Type decides which are available.

- **Manual** — the Owner types the value in. The Item's record keeps who set it and when.
- **Nested items** — the value is a rollup of the children's progress. A parent in this mode shows the weighted average of its branch (see below).
- **Linked work items** — the value is computed from the Item's linked Jira work items, such as the share of them that are Done. See [Jira integration → Progress from linked work items](https://docs.caskcode.io/strategy-hub/jira-integration#progress-from-linked-work-items).

## Rolling up from children

When a value rolls up from nested items, each child contributes a share of the parent's number. How those shares are decided is the parent's weighting—the Item details view shows it beside the mode, as in "Nested items, equal weight":

- **Equal weight** — every child counts the same.
- **Manual weight** — each child carries a weight you set and contributes in proportion.
- **Story points** — a child's weight is the sum of its linked Jira issues' story points.
- **Priority** — a child's weight comes from the priority of its linked issues.

The last two read from Jira, so they suit branches whose leaves track linked work. Priority weights are configurable—see [Configure types and status sets](https://docs.caskcode.io/strategy-hub/configure-types-and-status-sets).

## Staleness

A value can be right when entered and wrong a month later if nobody revisits it. Each Type sets an update cadence—how long an Item may go without a manual update before Strategy Hub considers it stale and raises a [Stalled Insight](https://docs.caskcode.io/strategy-hub/insights).

Only a manual update resets the clock. Rollups from children and recomputed linked values keep flowing, but they don't count as someone confirming the number. So an Item whose value moves only automatically can still go stale.

## Related

- [Insights](https://docs.caskcode.io/strategy-hub/insights) — the Behind pace, Stalled, and Status mismatch findings all come from the rules on this page.
- [Configure types and status sets](https://docs.caskcode.io/strategy-hub/configure-types-and-status-sets) — where Status Sets, status workflows, and Type update policy are set.
- [Strategic Items](https://docs.caskcode.io/strategy-hub/items) — where you read and set an Item's Status, value, and update modes.
- [Jira integration](https://docs.caskcode.io/strategy-hub/jira-integration) — how linking issues feeds value updates and weighting.
