Definition
The governed decision to move an artifact or change into a more trusted lifecycle state. Examples include accepting a generated answer, merging a patch, releasing a package, shifting traffic to a model, or deploying to production.
Promotion separates production of a candidate from authority to use it. A builder may create a patch and run tests without being allowed to merge. An evaluator may produce evidence without owning the final decision. Policy combines that evidence with risk, provenance, approvals, and current operating conditions to determine whether the boundary may be crossed.
A promotion boundary is a control surface
Each boundary should name the candidate, source state, destination state, required evidence, decision authority, recorded rationale, and recovery path. Higher-consequence states usually require stronger and more independent evidence. Promotion can also be gradual: a model version may move from offline evaluation to shadow traffic, then a canary, then a larger rollout rather than jumping directly to full production.
Distinguish it from nearby terms
Deployment changes an environment. Release makes an artifact available. Promotion is the decision that authorizes movement between defined states and may include either action. Approval is one possible input to that decision; a signed approval without the required evidence is not necessarily a valid promotion.
Check your understanding
A coding agent passes its own tests and marks a task complete. Has the patch been promoted? Only if the configured authority accepted the required evidence and moved it to the next state. Identify who or what made that decision, what evidence was considered, and how it can be reversed.