Formula
SF = (items modified within 180 days
÷ total active steering items)
× 100Thresholds
Governance is current
Staleness accumulating
Governance abandoned — act
Reading it
Governance that is never updated is governance that has been abandoned. Architecture evolves, technology stacks change, teams change — Steering artifacts that do not reflect these changes are no longer describing the intent behind the code. A low SF means Lenses may be evaluating PRs against rules that no longer reflect what the organisation actually believes.
The 180-day threshold is not arbitrary. It reflects the expected pace of meaningful architectural change in most engineering organisations. A Vision document that has not been touched in 200 days may be perfectly accurate — or it may be describing a system that no longer exists in the form it describes. SF flags the question; the architect answers it.
SF is most actionable when read alongside PCR. A pillar with high SF (recently updated) and declining PCR (failing evaluations) indicates a governance foundation that is current but not effective — the rules are fresh, but teams are not conforming. A pillar with low SF and declining PCR indicates both problems simultaneously: the rules are stale and conformance is declining.
How rkito produces it
- 01
Collect all active Steering items
Manifestos, Pillars, Policies — all items with statusCode = ACTIVE
- 02
Check modifiedAt timestamp
For each item, compare modifiedAt against current date − 180 days
- 03
Classify as fresh or stale
Modified within 180 days = fresh. Not modified = stale.
- 04
Compute SF
(fresh item count / total active item count) × 100
- 05
Surface at /steerings/dashboard
Staleness signal visible per artifact type. No automated per-pillar view yet — check manually by sorting modifiedAt ascending.
Who reads it
SF is the signal that governance artifacts under your stewardship are current. A pillar you own with SF < 50 is a pillar whose rules have not been confirmed as accurate in over 6 months. Before reporting DCS or PCR numbers from this pillar to leadership, confirm the Lenses are still evaluating current intent.
SF contextualises DHS. A DHS of 94 with SF = 40% means nearly half of the governance foundation is describing a system that may have changed significantly in the last 6+ months. Always surface SF alongside DHS in leadership reporting.
How it misleads
What to do at each threshold
Step-by-step response playbook for each signal state.
Governance is current. Keep it that way with routine reviews and ownership cadences.
- Check
/steerings/dashboardto confirm no single artifact type is silently drifting toward yellow. - Assign each pillar owner a 6-month review cadence — record it in your team calendar so reviews don't slip past the 180-day threshold.
Staleness is accumulating. Identify the drifting artifacts and schedule reviews before they cross into red.
- Navigate to
/steerings/manifestos,/steerings/pillars, and/steerings/policies. Sort by modifiedAt ascending to identify the stalest artifacts. - For each artifact > 180 days old: either update it to reflect current reality, or open a CHI to deprecate it. A 'reviewed and confirmed accurate' touch is valid where content is still correct.
Governance has been abandoned. An immediate audit is required before DCS or PCR numbers are reported to leadership.
- Assign every stale artifact to its pillar owner for review within 14 days.
- Artifacts that cannot be confirmed as current must be updated or deprecated via CHI. Do not continue reporting DCS or PCR numbers to leadership while half the governance foundation is unconfirmed.