6.5 · Lesson 5 of 5
Support lifecycle phases (discovery, design, handoff, monitoring, iteration)
What You Need to Know
Lifecycle management for Claude systems spans discovery, design, handoff, monitoring, and iteration. Each phase needs exit criteria and owners. Architects who vanish after the ADR leave monitoring and iteration unowned — a frequent exam failure. Handoff is not a slide dump: it transfers ops, eval, and alert ownership with accepted runbooks.
Iteration is planned: incidents, eval failures, and stakeholder reviews feed the next design cycle with recorded decisions. Exit criteria prevent infinite discovery and premature launches. The lifecycle continues past design; professional architects stay accountable until ownership is accepted and monitoring is live.
Lifecycle phases
- Discovery — goals, NFRs, metrics; exit when owned and testable
- Design — ADRs, contracts, risks; exit when buildable
- Handoff — owners, runbooks, dashboards accepted
- Monitoring — quality/cost/SLA signals paging correctly
- Iteration — planned intake from feedback and failures
Decision rules
- Define exit criteria per phase — make go/no-go explicit.
- Handoff includes ops, eval, and monitoring ownership — not slides alone.
- Do not leave monitoring ownership undefined after design.
- Plan iteration from incidents, evals, and reviews.
- Architects who vanish after design miss lifecycle items.
Why design-only fails
A completed ADR without accepted ops ownership means nobody watches quality canaries or owns the next iteration. When SLAs drift or tools fail, the organization discovers the gap the hard way. Lifecycle stems reward naming that missing ownership.
Review checklist
- Are phase exit criteria written?
- Did handoff transfer accepted ops/eval ownership?
- Are monitoring owners and alerts live?
- Is iteration cadence and intake defined?
- Is the architect still accountable for unaccepted risks?
Exam stems that end at design with no monitoring owner reward calling out the lifecycle gap — not celebrating more discovery or blaming compliance.
Exam application
Prefer answers that name handoff/monitoring/iteration ownership and phase exit criteria. Distractors: vanish after design, slides-only handoff, infinite discovery, accidental iteration.
Exam traps
Architect vanishes after the ADR
Lifecycle items cover handoff, monitoring, and iteration. Design-only engagement fails.
Handoff as slides only
Handoff must transfer ops, eval, and monitoring ownership — not a deck dump.
No phase exit criteria
Without go/no-go gates, discovery never ends or design ships unfinished.
Accidental iteration
Iteration should be planned from feedback and incidents — not random thrash.
Practice scenario
After design, the architect never defines who owns monitoring or iteration. What lifecycle gap is this?
Build exercise
Define a full lifecycle plan for a support-copilot launch
40 minutes
What you'll learn
- Write phase exit criteria and artifacts
- Staff handoff with accepted ownership
- Stand up monitoring before calling design done
- Plan iteration intake and cadence
Step 1
Define phases and exit criteria
List discovery, design, handoff, monitoring, and iteration. Write exit criteria and artifacts for each (e.g., discovery exits when metrics and NFRs are owned).
Why: Exit criteria make go/no-go explicit and prevent infinite discovery or premature ship.
You should see: Lifecycle table: phase → exit criteria → artifacts → owner.
Step 2
Staff handoff with real ownership
Name build, ops, and eval owners. Transfer runbooks, SLAs, dashboards, and on-call. Confirm acceptance explicitly.
Why: Slides without accepted ownership are not handoff.
You should see: Signed handoff checklist with owner names.
Step 3
Stand up monitoring before calling design done
Ensure quality/cost/SLA signals and alert routes exist. Do not leave monitoring ownership undefined.
Why: Lifecycle gap after design often is missing monitoring ownership.
You should see: Dashboard + alert owners listed in the handoff pack.
Step 4
Plan iteration as a phase
Schedule how incidents, eval failures, and stakeholder reviews feed the next design cycle. Track iteration outcomes.
Why: Iteration is a lifecycle phase, not an accident.
You should see: Iteration cadence + intake sources (alerts, reviews, fixtures).
Sources
- Test and evaluate overview — docs.anthropic.com — eval ownership across lifecycle
- Build with Claude overview — docs.anthropic.com — design through implementation
- Tool use overview — docs.anthropic.com — ops concerns that persist after design