---
title: Item states
description: Mark how finished each part of your brand is, and keep work in progress away from your agents until it is ready.
---

> Source: https://www.heyarchetype.com/docs/workspace/states

Every item in a brand can carry a state that says how finished it is. The state is also a gate: only finished work leaves Archetype, so your agents never build with a half-made component or a draft logo.

## The five states

Work moves along one ladder, the same for everything a brand holds:

| State | Means | Reaches agents |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Draft** | Started, not ready to look at. | No |
| **In progress** | Being worked on. | No |
| **In review** | Ready for someone to check. | No |
| **Complete** | Finished and approved. | Yes |
| **Deprecated** | Kept for the record, no longer to be used. | No |

An item can also have no state at all, shown as **Not set**. Not set is treated like Complete and is served. That way a brand that never uses states keeps working exactly as before, and you only need states for the work you want to hold back.

## What a state controls

Inside the app, every member sees every item whatever its state. The state decides what goes out to everything outside it:

- **Agents over MCP.** `get_brand` and `search_brand` only list, find and return items that are Complete or Not set. See [MCP tools](/docs/agents/tools).
- **Brand files.** BRAND.md, the tokens file and the downloadable bundle leave out anything not finished. See [DESIGN.md, BRAND.md and skills](/docs/agents/files).
- **The share link.** The public page at `/share/<brand-slug>` shows only finished work. See [Sharing](/docs/workspace/sharing).
- **Checks.** Both the **Check** page and an agent's `check_against_brand` grade against the finished brand, so a draft logo never counts as the reference. See [Check](/docs/create/check).

> [!NOTE]
> What a finished item is built from still goes out with it. A Complete template keeps its colors, fonts, logo and photos even if one of those is still in review, because the template would render broken without them.

## What carries a state

Each of these has its own state:

- Components
- Templates
- Assets in the library
- Logos
- Artifacts
- Knowledge documents
- Icon sets

Foundations are reviewed a group at a time, since half a palette is no use to anyone. **Colors**, **Typography**, **Spacing**, **Radius** and **Shadow** each have one state for the whole group, set from the group's header on the **Foundations** page. Each logo has its own.

## Set a state

You need edit rights on the area the item belongs to: an Editor, Admin or Owner, or a custom role that can edit that area. See [Members and roles](/docs/workspace/team).

:::steps
### Open the item
Go to the component, template, asset, logo, artifact, Knowledge document or icon set.

### Pick a state
Open **Status** in its details, or the **Status** menu in the page header, and pick one. It saves at once.

### Clear it if you need to
To go back to **Not set**, open the same menu and select **Clear status**.
:::

### Set many at once

On the **Components**, **Templates**, **Artifacts** and **Assets** pages you can pick several items and set them together. Tick the box on each card (on Components, Templates and Artifacts you can also choose **Select** from a card's menu), then select **Set status** in the bar at the bottom of the page and choose a state. Press Esc to leave the selection.

## Find work by state

The same grids have a status filter. Pick one or more states to see, for example, everything **In review**, or pick **Not set** to find what nobody has looked at yet. The filter lives in the page address, so you can send a reviewer a link to exactly the items waiting for them.

## A simple way to use states

1. After an import, leave what came in as it is and mark the parts you haven't checked as **In review**. They stay out of your agents' reach.
2. Look each one over, fix what the import got wrong, and mark it **Complete**.
3. When you replace something, mark the old version **Deprecated** instead of deleting it. Agents stop seeing it, and your team can still find it.

Every state change is recorded in [History](/docs/workspace/history) like any other edit.

## Next steps

:::cards
- [History and versions](/docs/workspace/history): See every change and take one back.
- [Changes from agents](/docs/agents/drafts): Review what an agent proposes before it lands.
- [MCP tools](/docs/agents/tools): What your agents can read and do.
:::