= Component Readiness Grades (CRG) Criteria
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This document defines the quality assessment criteria for individual project components.

== Grade Definitions

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| Grade | Name | Release Stage | Meaning

| **A** | Field-Proven | Stable | Real-world feedback amassed; no harm in wild.
| **B** | Broadly Validated | Release Candidate | Tested on 6+ diverse external targets.
| **C** | Self-Validated | Beta | Reliable in home context (dogfooded).
| **D** | Partial | Alpha | Works on some inputs/cases but not systematically.
| **E** | Minimal | Pre-alpha | Barely functional; needs major work.
| **F** | Harmful/Wasteful | Reject/Delegate | Redundant or negative value.
| **X** | Untested | — | Status completely unknown.
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== Core Principles

1. **Assess components, not projects:** Each feature gets its own grade.
2. **Evidence over intuition:** Every grade above X requires documented evidence.
3. **Honest assessment:** Grade the component as it is today, not as you hope it will be.
4. **Grades are earned and can be lost:** Regressions lead to demotion.

== Assessment Checklist

1. Has it been tested at all? (No → **X**)
2. Does it cause harm or duplicate something better? (Yes → **F**)
3. Does it do something, however slight? (Barely → **E**)
4. Does it work on some things but not others? (Partial → **D**)
5. Does it work reliably on our own project? (Dogfooded → **C**)
6. Has it been tested on 6+ diverse external targets? (Broad → **B**)
7. Do external users confirm it works and is useful? (Field-proven → **A**)

See link:READINESS.adoc[READINESS.adoc] for the current project assessment.
