---
title: The status lifecycle
type: note
status: ready
domain: yomihon
created: 2026-09-22
updated: 2026-09-22
lang: en
---

Each `[[lifecycle]]` row in [[The vault contract]] names one status: the note types it applies to, whether a note may start there, and which statuses it can be reached from.

```mermaid
flowchart LR
  draft -->|initial| draft2[draft]
  draft2 --> ready
  ready --> draft2
  ready --> published
  draft2 --> archived
  ready --> archived
  published --> archived
```

## initial is written out

Every row says whether a note can begin at that status. Writing `initial` on one row means writing it on all of them; a lifecycle that declares it on some rows and leaves the rest open is refused.

## published is declared and never set

The diagram shows transitions the contract allows, including `ready → published`. Yomihon never sets a note **to** `published`, even when the contract permits that target: the value records a publication that happened somewhere else, and a reading surface cannot attest to one.

This restriction concerns the target, not a note already marked `published`. [[A published note]] carries that value, written by hand. Its status panel offers `archived` because this example contract allows `published → archived`, as the diagram shows. Other vaults offer the onward transitions their own contracts permit.

## settled keeps a finished note unmarked

A row can say `settled = true`. A reading page then prints a note's status only when the note is not at a settled one, so a finished library is not covered in labels and the few notes still to be done stand out. A contract that never writes the key marks every status.

## What a write is

The button rewrites one line of a note's [[Frontmatter]]. If the file changed on disk while you were reading, the write is refused rather than applied to a version you never read.