> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://witness.nu/docs/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Statuses > What each status waits for, who it waits on, and why Done needs a person's name. A card's status says one thing: **who or what the card is waiting on.** Three statuses wait on a person, and those are your queue. The rest wait on the work, on the world, or on nothing at all. | Status | Waits on | Meaning | | - | - | - | | Triage | a person | A raw idea, captured with only a title, waiting for a person to say what it is. Not in the working set until then. | | Investigating | the work | Cause or approach unknown — someone digs. Where a reopened card lands. | | Awaiting decision | a person | Waiting on a human decision, not on the work — about the product, or about this card: its scope, its sequencing, whether it is still wanted. | | Ready to build | the work | Requirement settled, approach known — any builder can pick it up. The approach is in `statusReason`, or in a filled analysis, and is one someone established by looking, never one guessed from the report: a finding nobody has investigated yet is Investigating, however clearly it is written. | | Blocked | the world | Cannot proceed. A card waiting on another card says so in `blockedBy` and is listed here while that blocker is open — it keeps its real status and needs no reason; when the last blocker closes it is workable again with nothing to update. Set this status by hand only for a blocker that is not a card — an environment, a release, an answer — and say which in `statusReason`. | | Needs verification | a person | The verification is stale — the test changed, or the card took on something new to cover — and a person can run it now. | | Done | closed | A named person vouches that it works — `verifiedBy` says who, and the claim is theirs. A passing check vouches for nothing. | | By design | closed | Works as intended, for a stated reason. Closed so nobody "fixes" it later. | | Parked | closed | Real, and not to be addressed now, for a stated reason. A debt still on the books. | | Cancelled | closed | Never real — a duplicate, a mistake, a card made to try the project out. Not Parked: the test is whether you would mind if nobody ever looked at it again. | Some statuses are claims, and the server refuses them without the evidence the table names: an approach for Ready to build, a reason for Blocked, Parked and By design, and a name for Done. The evidence is asked for each time the status is set. ## Three wait on a person **Triage**, **Awaiting decision** and **Needs verification** wait on a person: what the card is, which way to go, whether it works. An agent that meets one of them prepares it (the likely answer, the options with a recommendation, the steps to run) and then waits for you. The call is yours, and when the agent records it, it records it as yours. [Your queue →](/docs/guides/queue) **Blocked** is not one of them, on purpose. A blocked card waits on the world, such as a release, an environment or an answer someone owes, and says which in its reason. A card that waits on another card names it instead, and becomes workable again by itself when that card closes. ## Why Done needs a person's name Done closes a card on someone's word, so it carries the name of the person who vouches for it. Witness refuses Done without one, in every project. What that person must have done first is your team's call, and it lives in the working rules. A new project's rules ask for the strongest version: they ran it in the app and watched it work, because a passing test suite says the code ought to work, not that anyone saw it. A team that signs off on review, or when a pull request merges, writes that instead. [Writing working rules →](/docs/guides/working-rules) An agent may record the name when the person tells it the result. What an agent must never do is fill it in for them. By default, an agent that has finished and checked its own work moves the card to **Needs verification**, with where to run it and what to look at, and a person takes it from there. ## When a sign-off goes stale A sign-off covers the card as it was when it was given. If a Done card's test steps change afterwards, or it is given something new to cover, the card goes back to **Needs verification** by itself, and the next sign-off names its witness again. Taking something off what it covers does not reopen it. Witness does not watch your repository. Noticing that a change overtakes work that was signed off is the agent's job. A new project's working rules ask it to keep the older card true without reopening it: the Done card keeps its steps and status as the record of what someone watched, and hands what it no longer describes to the card that changed it. The exact rules an agent works by, every status and every refusal word for word, are in the document your project hands its agents. This page explains them; that document is what the server enforces. This documentation is built and hosted on [Mintlify](https://mintlify.com), a developer documentation platform.