> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.zookooree.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Standard Work

> The current best known way, written down: the baseline that makes improvement measurable.

Standard work is the documented, currently-best way to perform each task on the line — not a ceiling on how good work can be, but a floor under how bad it is allowed to be, and the fixed point against which every proposed improvement is measured. Without a standard there is no kaizen, because there is nothing to improve *from*.

## Where it lives

The factory's standard work is the production-line document: seven stations, their outputs, and the principles that bind them — pull don't push, stop the line, small batches, every unit inherits the base protocol. Station-by-station operational detail lives in the [station pages](/stations/0-work-order); the standard-work document is the law those pages tour.

## The standard is germline

The standard work shapes every future unit, which makes it germline under [Thesis 5](/six-theses/germline-and-soma) — and germline changes get the strictest control in the plant. Row 13 of the compilation table lands here:

* **Machine-readable manifest.** The list of germline paths is not folklore; it lives in a single machine-readable manifest that both humans and gates consult.
* **Protected change path.** Germline files change by PR only, with required review and branch protection.
* **Changelog required by lint.** `germline/check-changelog.py` fails any change to a germline path that does not add a dated changelog entry in the same diff — reading the manifest at both ends of the range so a change cannot ungate itself, and failing closed when it cannot determine. The production line's own history is entry-by-entry visible at the bottom of the document, as the design demanded.
* **Fixture evals on PR.** Germline changes re-run evals against fixture units before merge, because a germline defect is congenital.

## How the standard changes

Anyone on the line — human or agent — proposes a change the same way: a PR against the standard, carrying its changelog entry, passing [the gate](/gates). The main feeder is the retro: every unit's retrospective ends with a mandatory section, *what changed in the standard work*, because a retro that changes nothing is a diary entry. Lessons that recur across runs graduate into the standard by the same germline path ([Station 6](/stations/6-operate)'s graduation rule).

## Unfinished until checkable

In this factory a standard that is not machine-checkable is treated as unfinished. Rules as scripts reach roughly 100 percent compliance; rules as documentation, about 48 — so each standard is written with its compiled form in view: the prose states the law, the gate makes it physics. A standard that exists only as prose is a standard still in compilation.

## Self-audit

| Claim                                                                                                    | Source                                         |
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------- |
| Standardized work as assembly discipline; principles (pull, stop the line, small batches, base protocol) | workflows/production-line.md:88–93             |
| Standard work is germline; strictest controls: PR-only, sign-off, changelog, fixture evals               | docs/factory-design.md:64                      |
| Row 13: CODEOWNERS/branch protection, changelog required by lint, fixture evals                          | docs/factory-design.md:206                     |
| Changelog gate mechanics: manifest at both ends, fail closed                                             | germline/check-changelog.py (module docstring) |
| Production line changelog exists and is enforced                                                         | workflows/production-line.md:95–99             |
| Mandatory retro section; a retro that changes nothing is a diary entry                                   | docs/factory-design.md:237                     |
| Scripts \~100% vs docs \~48%                                                                             | docs/factory-design.md:52                      |