Steering
Completeness
Score
The percentage of expected governance artifact categories that are present and active.
categories / 7) × 100
What it signals
SCS is the foundation check. Before any other rkito metric has meaning, the governance foundation must exist. An SCS below 60 means the org has not yet defined what it wants its architecture to be. DCS at 90% with SCS at 40% means 90% of PRs are passing evaluation against an incomplete standard — that is not conformance, it is measurement of a narrow slice.
SCS asks a binary question per category: is at least one active artifact present? It does not measure quality, depth, or currency of those artifacts — that is SF (Steering Freshness). SCS is the presence gate. If Manifesto, Pillar, Policy, Compliance, ADR, Risk, and Opportunity all have at least one record, SCS=100. The question of whether they are good is a different metric.
SCS=100 should be treated as a prerequisite, not an achievement. An org where SCS has been at 100 for 6 months and is not trending has checked a box. An org actively expanding GD from 5 to 25 has a governance foundation and is building depth. SCS gates the meaningfulness of the deeper metrics; it does not substitute for them.
How rkito produces it
rkito checks for the presence of at least one non-deleted record in each of 7 governance categories. SCS is calculated as the count of present categories divided by 7, multiplied by 100. Navigate to /steerings/dashboard to see the completeness signal.
Who this metric is for
SCS is the check to run before reporting DCS or PCR numbers to leadership. If SCS < 80, those numbers are measuring conformance against an incomplete standard.
SCS contextualises DHS. A DHS of 94 with SCS of 60 means 40% of the governance foundation is missing — the health score is incomplete data.
How this metric gets misused
SCS=100 does not mean the governance artifacts are good. It means all seven categories are present. A Manifesto with one sentence and a Policy that says “write good code” will produce SCS=100. Quality of governance artifacts is not measured by SCS — it is measured by GD (how many Lenses exist) and SF (how recently artifacts were updated). SCS is a presence check, not a quality check.
Use SCS as a prerequisite gate before trusting DCS and PCR numbers. Do not use it as evidence that governance is mature. An org with SCS=100 and GD=2 has checked the presence box and left the enforcement layer almost entirely empty.
What to do at each threshold
Step-by-step response playbook for each signal state.
The governance foundation is present. Shift attention to whether it is current and deep.
Check SF alongside SCS — governance that exists but has not been updated in >180 days may be stale. Stale artifacts produce stale Lenses.
Confirm GD is growing alongside SCS=100. Coverage should be deepening, not just present. SCS=100 with GD=2 is a presence box checked, not a governance foundation.
At least one of the 7 governance categories is absent. Identify it and assign ownership.
Navigate to /steerings/dashboard to identify which of the 7 categories is absent or inactive.
Assign a named steward and a 30-day deadline for each absent category. Absent categories mean Lens coverage for that domain cannot exist.
The governance foundation is critically incomplete. Other metrics are measuring against a broken standard.
Pause Lens authoring and pause reporting DCS or PCR numbers to leadership — they are measuring against an incomplete standard.
Assign each missing category to a steward. Escalate to architecture lead with a hard deadline for completion.
SCS gates GD's meaningfulness. GD tells you how many Lenses exist; SCS confirms the foundation those Lenses enforce against is complete.
SCS measures presence; SF measures currency. An artifact that exists but has not been updated in 180 days satisfies SCS but may fail SF.
DCS numbers are only meaningful when SCS ≥ 80. Low SCS means DCS is measuring conformance against an incomplete governance standard.
Is your governance foundation complete?
rkito calculates SCS automatically from your Steering layer. Connect your repo and see whether your governance foundation can support the metrics you are already reporting.