How rules work

Your rules are your team's mandate: a few files in .mandately/ in your repository that say who may decide what. Mandately reads them from your main branch, and every decision it records names the version it read.

The files

file	what it decides	page
`people.yml`	who is accountable, who else may say release, go and ship, and which accounts are agents	People
`classes.yml`	the impact classes, and whose word starts work and merges its changes in each	Impact classes
`sensitive.yml`	the paths that always need the owner's go, whatever the class	The owner's paths
`lifecycle.yml`	the states work moves through, which board status means which, and how a fix is marked	Lifecycle
`connections.yml`	the board and the repositories Mandately reads, with no credentials	Connections

Change a rule

Edit the file and open a pull request. The rules are among the owner's paths, so the change waits for the owner's go. Once it merges, the watch uses the new rules from its next pass.

If a file has a mistake, Mandately names the file and the key. Fix it by pull request, then run the command again.

What a rule decides

For each event, your rules give one of four verdicts:

verdict	when
proceed	the rules let it happen without a person's word
ask	it needs a person's word: a release to start, or a go to merge
refuse	someone said a word they do not hold the right to say
record	there is nothing to decide, so it is only recorded

In the watch week, Mandately records each verdict beside what your team did, and changes nothing.

The words people use

A person gives their word in a comment on the issue or the pull request. Mandately reads it from the first word.

word	what it does	who may say it
`release`	starts work that needs a person's release	the owner, and anyone under `roles.release`
`go`	lets a held change merge	the owner, and anyone under `roles.go`
`hold`	stops work until someone says the word again	anyone your rules name
`ship`	ships to users	the owner, and anyone under `roles.ship`

An approving review on a pull request counts as a go when the reviewer holds the right to say go.

Starting points

mand init starts your rules from the default pack, and you change it from there. To start from the rules Stackable runs by, use mand init --pack stackable.