= Cutdown Change Publication Policy

== Decision

Language changes follow a staged RFC lifecycle before becoming effective.

Lifecycle states:

- ``Draft``
- ``Accepted``
- ``Effective``

== State Requirements

=== Draft

Must include:

- problem statement and proposed behavior,
- grammar/AST impact,
- version target (``patch``/``minor``/``major``),
- initial conformance plan.

=== Accepted

Must include:

- final decision rationale,
- migration/fallback notes,
- conformance updates prepared,
- planned effective date.

=== Effective

May be marked only when:

- spec text is merged,
- conformance corpus updates are merged,
- required governance records are updated,
- effective date has been reached.

== Publication Rules

- No behavior is normative as "effective" while in ``Draft`` or ``Accepted`` state.
- Each accepted change must publish a unique change ID and target version.
- Effective changes must be listed in release notes/changelog.

Governance-policy amendments additionally follow ``./governance-review-policy.md`` cadence and emergency routing rules.

== Related

- [``./versioning-policy.md``](/latest/policies/versioning-policy)
- [``./governance-review-policy.md``](/latest/policies/governance-review-policy)