Promotion gates

Promotion gates are the controls that stop a specialised model from moving into production on momentum alone. A candidate must clear the configured benchmark threshold, satisfy operational checks, and carry enough evidence for a human approver to defend the decision later.

Gate sequence

Candidate staged

The iterate loop stages a candidate only after the run has produced a measurable improvement against the governed scenario set. The staged candidate is linked to its benchmark version, model lineage, score history, and rollback posture.

Evidence reviewed

A reviewer inspects the promotion evidence before approval. The review should cover benchmark coverage, held-out performance, regression count, latency, cost-per-decision, operational risk, and any known failure cluster that remains open.

Human approved

The approver decides whether the candidate is acceptable for the target deployment context. Approval is recorded with the promotion record so the decision remains auditable after the model changes state.

Rollback attached

Every promotion needs a rollback contract. The record should state what is being promoted, how the previous accepted state can be restored, and which operational signal would trigger rollback.

Promotion blockers

Common blockers include:

• held-out benchmark score below the configured threshold
• regressions in a capability that the customer has marked as critical
• missing approver sign-off
• incomplete lineage or rollback evidence
• unresolved infrastructure state that could affect serving reliability