Product Engineering Workflow¶
Use this page only after triage has selected the governed product route. For the whole operating model, start with Product Development System. For intake, backlog, rollover, and weekly selection, use Work Intake and Weekly Planning.
Route¶
flowchart LR
T["Linear triage"] --> C["Index challenge"]
C --> S["Linear Project specification"]
S --> I["Linear issues"]
I --> D["Delivery"]
D --> H["Handoff / closeout"]Governed product work exists for substantial, ambiguous, customer-visible, multi-person, cross-team, architectural, or sign-off-heavy work. Bugs, incidents, small fixes, and process/docs work should not be forced through this route unless triage deliberately promotes them.
Stages¶
| Stage | Source of truth | Ready when |
|---|---|---|
| Challenge | Index | The problem, outcome, value, constraints, commitments, and priority are clear enough to select or defer. |
| Specification | Linear Project | Scope, decisions, user-visible behaviour, business rules, risks, and open questions are clear enough to slice. |
| Execution plan | Linear issues | Stories or execution issues are small enough to own, estimate, schedule, and verify. |
| Delivery | Repo plus Linear | One ready issue is implemented, tested, documented, reviewed, and handed off. |
Rules¶
- Do not create repo-local challenge, specification, or story artifacts for new governed product work.
- The governed chain is
Index Challenge -> Linear Project Specification -> Linear Issue. - If the Index challenge, Linear Project specification, or active Linear issue is missing, shape that stage before broad implementation.
- Linear issues inside the Project are the execution plan.
- Delivery works one active Linear issue at a time.
- Delivery issues should be unit user stories or focused execution steps: the smallest useful buildable slices.
- If Linear and a repo-local planning artifact disagree, treat Index/Linear as canonical for product planning and migrate or retire the repo artifact.
Pickup¶
Before delivery starts, confirm:
- the issue belongs to the relevant Linear Project
- the Project links to or clearly names the Index challenge
- the issue has acceptance criteria or equivalent completion rules
- dependencies, blockers, estimate, and owner are visible when active
- relevant ADRs or long-lived system design have been checked when the change might affect an existing technical decision
If any of that is missing, stop and shape the missing context rather than guessing.
Drill Down¶
- Product Engineering Workflow in Linear: Linear fields, estimates, readiness, cycles, statuses, and labels.
- Product Engineering Delivery: delivery loop, done evidence, and staging validation.
- Release Notes: release communication.
- In-App Docs Authoring: product help docs.
- GitLab Feature Flags: rollout stage, release-note handling, help-doc timing, and retirement.