How work moves through Phoenix

The stages never change. What changes is which ones a scenario skips, who holds the decision inside them, and how long the whole thing takes — from a patch out the same day to a migration measured in quarters.

A new feature request

WeeksShips in the next scheduled minor

A consuming team needs a component or an API the platform does not have yet. The full pipeline, and the only one of the four that spends real time in design.

Where the shape breaks The stage that costs the most is the one before any code exists — most of what arrives is one application’s problem wearing a platform costume, and design is where that gets settled.

Intake
~2 days
How the work arrives and gets recorded
A team files a component or API request against the central queue, with the screen it is blocked on attached.
Decided by Platform intake
Triage
~1 week
Severity, priority, and who owns the call
Weighed against the roadmap, and against the harder question: does this belong in the platform at all, or in the application that asked for it?
Decided by Platform lead
Design
~2 weeks
The API shape and its trade-offs, settled before code
The expensive stage. API shape, accessibility acceptance criteria, and a tech-feasibility session with the requesting team’s designers — non-standard usage gets caught here rather than in review.
Decided by UX + platform architect
Build
~2 weeks
Implementation, tests, and the migration path
Implementation against the agreed API, with tests and the documentation entry written alongside it rather than after.
Decided by Owning engineer
Verify
~1 week
Accessibility, visual regression and contract checks
Accessibility audit, visual regression across both themes, and the contract tests every consuming application leans on.
Decided by QA + accessibility
Release
Scheduled
The version that carries it, and to which supported lines
Additive by definition, so it rides the next scheduled minor and nothing downstream has to move.
Decided by Release manager
Adopt
At their pace
How consuming applications take it up
Teams pick it up on their next version bump. No migration, no deadline, no chasing.
Decided by Consuming teams

A bug fix

DaysPatch release on the current line

A defect in something the platform already promised. The contract exists and is not being honoured, so the whole design stage falls away.

Where the shape breaks Nothing is designed. The entire question is whether the defect is the platform’s at all — roughly half of what arrives turns out to be application-side.

Intake
Same day
How the work arrives and gets recorded
A defect report with a reproduction. Without one it goes back — an unreproducible report costs the team more than it costs the reporter.
Decided by Platform intake
Triage
~1 day
Severity, priority, and who owns the call
Severity set against the bug SLA, and the call on whether this is a platform defect or an application using the component in a way it was never shaped for.
Decided by Platform lead
Design skipped
The API shape and its trade-offs, settled before code
Skipped. There is nothing to design — the contract already exists, it simply is not being honoured.
Build
~2 days
Implementation, tests, and the migration path
Reproduce in isolation, fix, and add the regression test that would have caught it. The test is the deliverable as much as the fix is.
Decided by Owning engineer
Verify
~1 day
Accessibility, visual regression and contract checks
The new regression test plus the existing suite. Anything that changes rendered output takes the visual pass too.
Decided by QA
Release
Same week
The version that carries it, and to which supported lines
A patch on the current line, out the same week.
Decided by Release manager
Adopt
At their pace
How consuming applications take it up
Passive. Teams get it on their next bump and nobody is chased for it.
Decided by Consuming teams

A CVE fix release

Hours to daysOut-of-band patch on every supported major

A published vulnerability in something the platform depends on. An external clock, an audience that includes people who do not read changelogs, and a release that has to reach every supported line at once.

Where the shape breaks Intake is a scanner rather than a person, and release forks: the newest line is not where the exposed applications are, so the fix is backported across every major still in support.

Intake
Continuous
How the work arrives and gets recorded
Not a person. Dependency scanning files advisories against every supported line, continuously, whether or not anyone is looking.
Decided by Automated scanning
Triage
Hours
Severity, priority, and who owns the call
The real work: is the vulnerable path reachable from anything the platform actually calls? Most advisories are transitive and unreachable, and being able to say so with evidence is what keeps the queue from swallowing the team.
Decided by Platform lead + security
Design skipped
The API shape and its trade-offs, settled before code
Skipped, and deliberately so. There is no design surface here — the fix is a version bump or a patch, and the public API must not move.
Build
~1 day
Implementation, tests, and the migration path
Upgrade or patch the dependency and prove the public API is unchanged. A security fix that breaks consumers is a worse outage than the vulnerability was.
Decided by Owning engineer
Verify
~1 day
Accessibility, visual regression and contract checks
The full suite against every supported major, not only the current one — the backport is the part most likely to go wrong.
Decided by QA
Release
Same day
The version that carries it, and to which supported lines
Where this flow stops resembling the others. An out-of-band patch on every supported line at once, because older majors are where the exposed applications actually are.
Decided by Release manager
Adopt
Tracked to zero
How consuming applications take it up
Chased, not awaited. Remediation is tracked per application until the finding count clears — the difference between a fix existing and a fix landing.
Decided by Platform lead

A major architectural change

QuartersA major, with both paths live behind a deprecation window

A framework major, or a constraint the current shape cannot reach. Every consuming team pays for it, so the bar is high and the plan is measured in quarters.

Where the shape breaks Design ends at a budget conversation rather than a design review, and build produces codemods — if migration is manual across dozens of applications, the plan was wrong.

Intake
Recognised, not filed
How the work arrives and gets recorded
Rarely a request. A framework major, an accumulated constraint, or a security posture the current architecture cannot reach.
Decided by Platform lead
Triage
~1 month
Severity, priority, and who owns the call
Is this worth a major? The bar is high, because the cost is not paid by the platform team — it is paid by every team consuming it.
Decided by Platform lead + stakeholders
Design
~1 quarter
The API shape and its trade-offs, settled before code
An RFC with the options and their trade-offs, a prototype that proves the expensive one is possible, and a costed plan — because this stage ends at a budget conversation, not a design review.
Decided by Architect + executive stakeholders
Build
~1–2 quarters
Implementation, tests, and the migration path
The change, and the codemods that carry teams across it. Tooling is not a nice-to-have here; it is the difference between a migration that lands and one that stalls.
Decided by Platform team
Verify
~1 month
Accessibility, visual regression and contract checks
The suite, plus the codemods run against real consuming applications before anyone else is asked to run them.
Decided by QA + pilot teams
Release
Scheduled
The version that carries it, and to which supported lines
A major, with both paths live: the old shape deprecated but working, the new one documented as the default.
Decided by Release manager
Adopt
~2–3 quarters
How consuming applications take it up
Phased, with a deprecation window and per-team support. Sequencing matters more than speed — the goal is that the next version bump takes a week rather than a quarter.
Decided by Consuming teams + platform

The pipeline

A new feature request

Intake

Triage

Design

Build

Verify

Release

Adopt

A bug fix

Intake

Triage

Design skipped

Build

Verify

Release

Adopt

A CVE fix release

Intake

Triage

Design skipped

Build

Verify

Release

Adopt

A major architectural change

Intake

Triage

Design

Build

Verify

Release

Adopt

Everything runs this way