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emergent engineering

Entity Lifecycle

Intent

Section titled “Intent”

Define lifecycle states and transition constraints for core entities so implementation remains consistent across API, sync, and standards exports.

Lifecycle Principles

Section titled “Lifecycle Principles”
  • State transitions are explicit and auditable
  • Temporal validity is preferred over hard deletion
  • Reversible transitions must preserve history
  • Terminal states do not destroy person learning history

Offering Lifecycle

Section titled “Offering Lifecycle”

States

Section titled “States”
  • draft
  • scheduled
  • active
  • paused
  • completed
  • archived
  • canceled

Transition Rules

Section titled “Transition Rules”
  • draft -> scheduled when staffing and minimum metadata are valid
  • scheduled -> active at start time or explicit activation
  • active -> paused for temporary suspension
  • paused -> active when resumed
  • active -> completed when learning window ends
  • scheduled -> canceled before activation
  • completed -> archived after retention threshold

Membership Lifecycle

Section titled “Membership Lifecycle”

States

Section titled “States”
  • invited
  • active
  • suspended
  • withdrawn
  • completed
  • expired

Transition Rules

Section titled “Transition Rules”
  • invited -> active when accepted or auto-provisioned
  • active -> suspended for temporary policy hold
  • suspended -> active after reinstatement
  • active -> withdrawn for deliberate exit
  • active -> completed at successful closure
  • active -> expired at end of effective window without completion signal

Temporal Rules

Section titled “Temporal Rules”
  • effective_from is required
  • effective_until may be null for open-ended membership
  • Backdated status changes must preserve prior audit entries

Assessment Definition Lifecycle

Section titled “Assessment Definition Lifecycle”

States

Section titled “States”
  • draft
  • published
  • active
  • retired

Transition Rules

Section titled “Transition Rules”
  • draft -> published after validation
  • published -> active at release
  • active -> retired when replaced or deprecated

Once attempts exist, immutable fields should be frozen or versioned.

Attempt Lifecycle

Section titled “Attempt Lifecycle”

States

Section titled “States”
  • started
  • submitted
  • evaluated
  • finalized
  • invalidated

Transition Rules

Section titled “Transition Rules”
  • started -> submitted by learner or timeout policy
  • submitted -> evaluated by auto/manual scoring
  • evaluated -> finalized when grade publication is committed
  • finalized -> invalidated only via explicit remediation workflow

Qualification Award Lifecycle

Section titled “Qualification Award Lifecycle”

States

Section titled “States”
  • proposed
  • granted
  • revoked
  • superseded

Transition Rules

Section titled “Transition Rules”
  • proposed -> granted when criteria are satisfied
  • granted -> revoked with policy-based reason and audit trail
  • granted -> superseded when replaced by higher or corrected award

Soft Delete and Archival Policy

Section titled “Soft Delete and Archival Policy”

Core learning records should not be hard deleted in normal workflows.

Preferred approach:

  • Use state transitions (archived, retired, revoked, withdrawn)
  • Preserve immutable audit events
  • Use retention windows for non-critical artifacts

Standards Interaction Notes

Section titled “Standards Interaction Notes”

Lifecycle transitions can emit integration events:

  • Offering and membership transitions inform roster systems
  • Attempt and score transitions inform xAPI/LRS and grade exchange
  • Qualification transitions inform CLR/Open Badge projections

See mapping details in integration docs.

Implementation Anchors

Section titled “Implementation Anchors”
  • State enums and validation: packages/domain
  • State columns and constraints: packages/db
  • Conflict-safe local transition application: packages/offline-data
  • Transition authorization and side effects: apps/api