Article lifecycle · state machine

State machine · Diagram Design

# Article lifecycle

The four states a post passes through from draft to archive, with the rejection loop made explicit. Published is the state the team optimizes for — hence coral.

THE HEADLINE

### Published is the win state

Everything flows toward Published. The rejection loop is dashed because it's a detour, not a failure — the article is still in-progress.

### Reject is a loop, not a dead-end

- Dashed to signal detour
- Returns to Draft, not a new state
- Review feedback is the action

### Archive keeps the URL

Archived preserves the redirect map so inbound links survive. Only Purge removes the record entirely.