Lifecycle stages used in this documentation
Development status: Overview — This page defines documentation-level stage terms; they are not protocol status values, receipts or fields. Each term carries the status of the stage it names: for transactions, submission, initial checks, admission, execution and recording are exercised in the internal experimental implementation, and no result is reported as final because finality is not connected; confidential-job stages are being explored. Nothing is publicly available for live use.
Before you read: Transaction lifecycle: from submission to result.
What do terms such as submitted, admitted, executed, recorded and final mean in these pages? This page is the single place where stage terms are defined. It gives one consistent set of plain-language terms for transactions and for confidential jobs, the status of each, how the two sets relate, and which terms used elsewhere this documentation avoids.
What these terms are, and are not
- Documentation terms. They are plain-language terms used across all pages, so that a stage means the same thing everywhere.
- Not protocol values. They are not protocol status values, receipt contents, field names or codes, and no implementation is implied to use these words.
- What a reader could observe. They describe what a reader could expect to observe, not how the network works internally.
- Mapped later, if needed. If released interfaces later report status, a mapping from their status values to these terms would be documented with the release.
Stages for transactions
- Submitted — sent by an application or wallet to a node. Status: Experimental implementation exists — internal prototype only.
- Validated — passed a node’s initial checks. This does not by itself mean that the sender was authenticated or that the transaction cannot be repeated. Status: Experimental implementation exists — internal prototype only.
- Admitted — accepted by a node for further processing. Under load, admission could be delayed or refused; see Service levels and admission control. Status: Experimental implementation exists — internal prototype only.
- Refused — not accepted. The reasons fall into the categories on What can go wrong: failure and error concepts. Status: Experimental implementation exists — internal prototype only.
- Propagated — passed between nodes. Status: Planned — part of the intended lifecycle; not described here as exercised by the internal prototype.
- Executed — processed deterministically, so that nodes processing the same input are intended to reach the same result. No published evidence yet establishes this across nodes. Status: Experimental implementation exists — internal prototype only.
- Recorded — its effects are reflected in node state, which can be committed under a cryptographic root; see Committed state and inclusion proofs. Recorded is not final. Status: Experimental implementation exists — internal prototype only.
The final stage
- Final — the point after which a recorded result is intended not to change.
- Today no result is reported as final: an experimental finality status query exists, but finality is not connected. See Agreement and finality status.
- Applications should keep “recorded” and “final” separate, both in their logic and in what users see.
- What final would mean in practice, how long it would take and under which conditions would be documented with a release.
Stages for confidential jobs
Status of this section: Being explored — the design is being explored; its public interface and support are not settled.
- Submitted — handed over for confidential processing, through planned language SDKs; no SDK is available.
- In progress — accepted and being worked on; the application could check progress.
- Completed — processing has finished, and a result exists for the parties entitled to it.
- Retrieved — an entitled party has obtained the result.
- Cancelled — stopped at the application’s request before completion; a refund could follow, with conditions and amounts not described.
- Failed — ended without producing a result; the categories are on What can go wrong: failure and error concepts.
These terms are explained in context on Confidential jobs: tracking, cancelling and retrieving results.
How the two sets relate
- Different kinds of work. A confidential job is longer-running and asynchronous. Apart from submitted, which means the same hand-over in both sets, transaction terms such as admitted, executed and recorded are not used for jobs.
- Job finality is not described. Whether and when a job’s outcome becomes final, in the sense above, is not described.
- Reading order only. Terms are listed in a reading order. This does not imply that every stage is visible to applications, and it does not describe how the network sequences work internally.
- Status per term. Each term carries the status of the stage it names.
Terms this documentation avoids or uses carefully
- Other platforms’ confirmation counts, finality levels and failure semantics are not adopted.
- “Committed” is used for state commitments (see Committed state and inclusion proofs), not as a stage name.
- “Confirmed” and “settled” are not used as stage names, because their meanings differ across platforms.
- One stage, one term: synonyms are avoided, so a different word always means a different stage.
Assumptions, trust and limitations
Terms may be revised as designs settle; any change would be recorded in the Documentation change log. No term implies a status code, receipt, field, timing or ordering guarantee.
Not yet available, and how this page will grow
If released interfaces report status, a mapping from released status values to these terms would be added here, with the version identity of the release. Further technical reference is not yet available.
Related pages
- Transaction lifecycle: from submission to result — transaction stages explained in context.
- Confidential jobs: tracking, cancelling and retrieving results — job stages explained in context.
- Glossary — short entries for each stage term link back to this page.
- Agreement and finality status — the final stage today.
Glossary
- Transaction
- Node
- Confidential job
- Admission control
- Deterministic execution
- Committed state
- Finality
- Refund
References
No approved public references yet.
