Quest lifecycle

The stages a Quest goes through, from idea to completion, and what moves it forward.

Every regular Quest moves through the same stages. The Quest’s Overview tab shows them as a timeline: Created by King, Council preparing, Approved by King, Heroes working, Completed.

1. Not Started

The Quest has been created and its Council seated. Nothing is being prepared yet.

A Quest whose Council is not yet seated shows as Draft (Idea). Seating the Council moves it to Not Started automatically.

2. In Council

What moves it here: Start Quest on the Quest page. The Start Council Preparation dialog checks that the Quest has a name, description, all three seats and a due date, then Start Council Preparation sends it to the Council.

What happens: each Council member prepares materials in the Council Hall, the Wizard and General produce the estimate, and each member clicks Send for King Review.

3. Approved

What moves it here: the King clicks Approve on the Quest page and, in Approve Council Work, Approve & Continue. Every active seat must have submitted first. See Submitting and approval.

What happens: the committed estimate becomes visible to the Heroes, and the Hero team chosen by the General is set.

A Side Quest with every seat skipped goes straight from Not Started to Approved.

4. Heroes Working

What moves it here: Select Heroes on the Quest page opens Start Quest: “Activate the native Step Workspace for this Quest.” Click Start Quest.

What happens: the Step Workspace unlocks. Heroes and the General create Steps, claim them, move them through their workflows, and log time. XP is released as Steps move forward.

Closure date warning

If the committed estimate no longer fits the closure date, the King and the General see Estimate does not fit the Closure Date above the tabs, with three ways out: Less scope, Later date, or More people. It is a warning only; it never blocks.

5. Completed

What moves it here: the Quest owner (or a Super Admin) clicks the current Heroes working card on the timeline. The completion window has two steps:

Quest Status Transition

Choose the Quest Outcome: Pass or Fail.

Set XP Release Amount

Choose how much of the acceptance-gate XP to release (0–100%), then Release N XP (or Confirm Fail).

If the Quest has Traps with no cause, you are warned that they will penalise nobody; you can link causes first or complete anyway.

What happens on completion:

the remaining XP gates are settled and released,
bug penalties are applied,
Council members receive their participation XP,
the Quest and its Hero team become read-only.

Archiving

Instead of deleting, the owner or a Super Admin can Archive Quest from the Settings tab. An archived Quest leaves the active lists, keeps its history, and is read-only. Completed Quests cannot be archived, and archiving cannot be undone.

A Quest cannot be archived while any Hero has a timer running on it. The dialog then reads Heroes Still Have Timers Running and says how many; once every timer on the Quest is stopped, you can archive it.