How to tell when work is ready to go online

A production line is for work that can go online: a change with a pattern, stations, and an inspection. Online, here, means that change has entered the line. It does not mean the work was published on the internet.

The practical question comes next. Which piece of work is ready, and which one is still design?

All four have to be true.

The result resembles something you have already shipped. The acceptance check can be written before the work starts. The inputs are stable enough that the station is not guessing the brief. A person can reject the result in minutes, without redoing the job to know it is wrong.

If one fails, the work stays a craft.

Resemblance is a migration, a report, a support draft, a data transform, or a screen that follows a screen you already have. The check is a test, a diff, a schema, or a list of sentences that must be true.

Stable inputs are the files, the ticket, or the sample rows. They do not change while the station runs. Fast rejection means the reviewer can say no from the check.

With no prior shape, you are still designing. The first one is made by hand. With no check, an agent can hand you something plausible and you will not know. When the inputs keep moving, the station redoes the work every time the brief changes.

If rejecting the result costs as much as doing it, you added a step. You did not add a line.

Pick one change you already know how to accept. Put that station online. Leave the rest of the system as it is. A line grows from a station that already works.