How does the SaSame MCP Factory lifecycle work?

This page explains the operational sequence shared by every Factory entry point.

An item enters the lifecycle through one of 7 creator-stated starting points:

1. I have an idea.
2. I have a design or spec.
3. I have an unfinished build.
4. I have a finished MCP.
5. I have a live MCP.
6. My MCP has a problem.
7. I just want monitoring.

Each entry point routes into the same 21-station lifecycle rather than a separate product path. See Getting started for exactly how to connect and start.

Every item in the Factory carries exactly one canonical state at a time:

QUEUED -> RUNNING -> WAITING_FOR_CREATOR / WAITING_FOR_OWNER / WAITING_FOR_REVIEW
       -> BLOCKED_WITH_REASON -> FAILED_RECOVERABLE -> FAILED_TERMINAL
       -> SHIPPED -> OBSERVING -> REPAIR_RECOMMENDED
       -> WITHDRAWN | COMPLETED   (terminal states)

A CI-blocking invariant check rejects four violation classes before they can reach production: an orphaned item with no valid predecessor, a duplicate lifecycle record for the same item, an impossible state transition, and a commercial-fulfillment mismatch — the invariant that a checkout view, a created checkout, a payment event, an entitlement and an actual deployment are four different facts, not one.

The 21 stations split into five disjoint groups whose union is the exact station registry:

What each station actually does:

Current automation maturity: every station runs at an assisted level today except Observation and AEO, which are partially automated. Public labels are deliberately honest about this — for example Inspection is publicly labeled "assisted inspection (verification status only, not a safe/good verdict)" and Claim is labeled "assisted ownership claim (control proof, not quality)."

Normal Guided Build is BYO-LLM and deterministic. SaSame does not take custody of creator credentials or automatically modify creator code.

SaSame does not require a fixed web dashboard for normal Factory use. After a principal is registered, call factory_dashboard_snapshot to obtain one bounded principal-scoped view of membership, slot use, lifecycles, claims, monitoring, findings, notifications, next actions, freshness and receipt references. A user, ChatGPT, Claude, a spreadsheet or a BI client can render that structured response in the format it needs. Call factory_export for a bounded JSON, CSV or Markdown page. Both tools require the principal ID and principal key, never return lifecycle keys or credentials, and cannot read another principal's portfolio. An optional organization filter is accepted only when the caller is an active member. Checkout creation, payment, entitlement and fulfillment remain separate facts, and neither read-only call counts toward the North Star.