Submission
A certification target is identified, submitted, or selected for review. Initial metadata, scope, and intended certification standard are recorded.
Suite · Methodology
Certification Lifecycle
The Certification Lifecycle defines the complete progression of a certification from initial submission through validation, evaluation, issuance, monitoring, renewal, retirement, and archive.
The lifecycle provides the temporal structure used by Certifier, Registry, Attestor, Anchor, Beacon, Navigator, Chronicle, and Atlas when handling certification records.
Validation
The submission is checked for completeness, identity, scope, required fields, and eligibility before entering formal evaluation.
Evidence Collection
Required evidence is gathered, organized, referenced, and prepared for review according to the applicable evidence requirements.
Evaluation
Evidence is reviewed against evaluation criteria, scoring rules, trust signals, and the relevant certification standard.
Decision
A certification determination is reached, including pass, conditional pass, fail, suspended, revoked, expired, or other defined status outcomes.
Issuance
Approved certifications are issued with structured records, identifiers, metadata, evidence references, and verification-ready schema fields.
Publication
Certification records may be published, registered, anchored, discovered, indexed, or made available for public verification.
Monitoring
Active certifications may be monitored for changes, expiration, corrections, disputes, updated evidence, or conditions requiring review.
Renewal
Certifications may be renewed when updated evidence, continued validity, or periodic review supports continued certification status.
Retirement and Archive
Certifications that are no longer active may be retired while remaining preserved as part of the permanent institutional record.
Methodology Role
The Certification Lifecycle establishes the chronological framework for all certification activity within the Satoshium Suite. It ensures that each certification has a clear beginning, documented progression, defined status, and preserved final record.
Every certification is a journey, not a moment.