Definition of Done
A shared checklist of what must be true before work counts as finished: tested, reviewed, deployed, documented.
Without it, “done” means “works on my machine” for one person and “live with monitoring” for another, and estimates hide the difference. Acceptance criteria describe what one feature must do; the Definition of Done applies to every piece of work. In a fixed-price project it is what decides whether a milestone is paid.
Related terms
- Scope creep: Small additions that each seem reasonable and together blow the budget and the date.
- Spec-driven development: Writing the specification and acceptance tests first, then letting agents implement against them.
- Fixed price: A contract where scope and price are agreed up front and the vendor carries the risk.
