Outcomes - Statuses

Statuses represent the business outcome—did the task succeed, skip, or fail? This differs from state, which tracks the execution lifecycle.

Definitions

Status	Description
success	Task execution completed successfully with expected business outcome. Default status for all tasks.
skipped	Task intentionally stopped execution because conditions weren't met or continuation was unnecessary.
failed	Task stopped execution due to business rule violations, validation errors, or exceptions.

Transitions

Important

Status transitions are final and unidirectional. Once skipped or failed, tasks can't return to success.

# Valid status transitions
success → skipped    # via skip!
success → failed     # via fail! or exception

# Invalid transitions (will raise errors)
skipped → success    # ❌ Cannot transition
skipped → failed     # ❌ Cannot transition
failed → success     # ❌ Cannot transition
failed → skipped     # ❌ Cannot transition

Predicates

Use status predicates to check execution outcomes:

result = ProcessNotification.execute

# Individual status checks
result.success? #=> true/false
result.skipped? #=> true/false
result.failed?  #=> true/false

# Outcome categorization
result.good?    #=> true if success OR skipped
result.bad?     #=> true if skipped OR failed (not success)

Handlers

Branch business logic with status-based handlers. Use handle_good and handle_bad for success/skip vs failed outcomes:

result = ProcessNotification.execute

# Individual status handlers
result
  .handle_success { |result| mark_notification_sent(result) }
  .handle_skipped { |result| log_notification_skipped(result) }
  .handle_failed { |result| queue_retry_notification(result) }

# Outcome-based handlers
result
  .handle_good { |result| update_message_stats(result) }
  .handle_bad { |result| track_delivery_failure(result) }