What it means
An intent under .ai/repo/project/intents/ states what must become true, the invariants that must stay true, the milestones that realise it and the criteria that settle it, each criterion naming the evidence that decides it. That statement is all it stores. Its stage — declared, planned, executing, verifying, satisfied — is read from the plan, and each criterion from the evidence ledger, on every read. Finished work satisfies nothing: an intent whose milestones are all DONE is verifying until every criterion has a current passing run.
How it works
apps/majordomus-cli/src/intent.rs joins the intent to the derived status of each milestone it names and each criterion to the ledger's latest run of the test or claim it names. A run recorded against a source that has changed since is stale, and a failing run is not evidence; either leaves the criterion unmet. cancelled and superseded are the only stages the record itself can state.
How to see it
majordomus intent list # every intent with its derived stage
majordomus intent show intent-lifecycle # each milestone's status and each criterion's evidence stateThe same derivation answers GET /api/v1/intents and the majordomus_intents MCP tool.
What it does not cover
A criterion settled by a command or a deployment resolves but is never met, because the ledger records runs of tests and claims only (intent-command-deployment-evidence). Finishing a task does not ask whether the intent it serves is satisfied.
Why it exists
A status written into the intent would be one more record that can disagree with the plan and the evidence it summarises. Deriving it means the intent file stays byte-identical while the work around it moves, which test/cases/367_an_intent_is_satisfied_only_by_evidence.sh checks at every step.