What it is
A commitment lives on two axes at once. Its status is what the declaration is: Awaiting a second signature, Signed off, Closed, or Retired. Its stage is where the season sits: Pre-season, In season, or Closed. The two are different questions with different answers, and a commitment signed off for a season that has not opened is Signed off and Pre-season at the same time. The word Active names both on the wire, which is why every row carries both and the book says which axis a tab filters on.
How Tightly decides it
Status is written by acts. Declare writes a pending declaration; Sign off arms it and it owns money from that moment; Close ends a boxed window that has passed its end, scores it and lands what is left; Retire ends a declaration early, or withdraws a pending one. There is no rejected status and no reopen: a submission the approver will not arm is withdrawn through Retire, and the way back from a wrong close is a new declaration, possible because the dollars are free again.
Stage is derived, not stored. It is the lifecycle crossed with where the current retail week sits in the window: Closed when the status is closed; Pre-season when the window has not opened; In season when the window is open, or rolling, or has ended without yet being closed, since a season past its end still needs reckoning. Every night a pass walks the whole book and records each move between Pre-season and In season on the commitment's trail, dated by the window rather than by the run, so a missed night costs nothing. A move into Closed is not recorded twice: the close or the retirement is already on the trail.
A person who holds the Commitments door, an admin or a member given it, may force the stage, with a reason that is required, and the force holds until it is cleared: it does not lapse when the real window opens. Forcing changes which surfaces the room offers and which tab the commitment lists under, immediately. It changes nothing any engine measures: the weekly defence, the pace forecast, the envelope ladder and the same-dollar rule read the declared dates and whether the commitment is live, never the stage. Forcing a closed commitment does not reopen it.
The words on the face
| Axis | Word | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Status | Awaiting a second signature | Declared, not signed; owns no money |
| Status | Signed off | Signed; the envelope is armed; Signed off · book not started while nothing is staged or on order |
| Status | Closed Sep 12, 2026 | Closed, dated as words |
| Status | Retired | Ended early with no successor named, or a pending declaration withdrawn |
| Stage | Pre-season | The window has not opened; a pending declaration files by its window like any other |
| Stage | In season | The window is open; the book's tab reads Active |
| Stage | Closed | Ended, by a close, a retirement or a successor |
| Autonomy | Proposing | The engines put figures forward and a person approves; never a status |
All commitments swaps its whole column set with the stage tab: the five and open to commit when running, the declared plan and readiness before it opens, the outcome and the five at close once closed. An empty tab is not an empty book, and each names its own emptiness:
Nothing is inside its window.
Nothing is waiting to open.
Nothing has closed yet.
What you can do about it
Sign off, Close and Retire move the status, each a version with a receipt. No page offers a door for forcing a stage yet; a forced stage is a fact on the commitment's record, with its reason and who set it, and clearing one is its own recorded act, never a force to today's stage.
Glossary line
Status is what a declaration is, Awaiting a second signature, Signed off, Closed or Retired; stage is where its season sits, Pre-season, In season or Closed, derived from the window each night unless a person forces it.