# The Ship / No-Ship Card (Chapter 15)

**Use when:** an artifact other people rely on: a spreadsheet, a report, or anything that feeds another meeting, decision, or audit. Write the criteria before the first incident, not after.

Three lines, before anything happens. If you cannot write them, the artifact is not ready to be relied on.

```
SHIP when: [THE CONDITIONS THAT MAKE THE ARTIFACT SAFE TO RELY ON]
NO-SHIP when: [THE CONDITIONS THAT STOP IT, EACH ONE A HARD STOP]
Reviewed by: [A NAMED REVIEWER WHO IS NOT YOU]

```

A filled example (the compliance sheet):

```
SHIP when: all ten hand-computed checks match, and a stranger reproduced
the result in fifteen minutes from the one-page sheet.
NO-SHIP when: any check mismatches, the change log cannot explain a
difference from the known-good copy, or the named reviewer has not
signed.
Reviewed by: Dana (finance), on the record.
```

## Rules that travel with it

- The criteria are written before the first incident. After an incident, every criterion looks like a diary entry; before, they look like a standard.
- The named reviewer is the first gate: domain knowledge over code literacy, and never you.
- Sign-offs are on the record. Dana's sign-off is the named reviewer from the first gate, which is exactly what the criteria were waiting for.
- The skip never announces itself. It shows up later as a wrong number found by someone else, or a reviewer who quietly starts checking everything you touch. The gates do not protect you from being wrong. They protect you from being wrong in public.

Verify: the frozen checks match, the named reviewer signed, and the change log explains every difference between the copy and the working file.