Workflow Reliability term
Transition table: meaning, examples, and expert terminology.
Makes every allowed and blocked movement between states explicit.
What it means
Plain meaning
Makes every allowed and blocked movement between states explicit.
Aliases
state transition matrix, allowed transitions
People say / experts say
People usually say
- unclear transitions
- step change
- valid move
- invalid move
- robust state
- between steps
Experts usually say
Transition table, Statechart, Invariant, Guard condition
When to use it
Use it when
Your rough ask sounds like: unclear transitions, step change, valid move. The term gives your coding agent a clearer problem shape.
When not to use it
Do not use this term as a request for a quick screen fix. Use it when the system needs explicit state, rules, failures, or recovery behavior.
Copy-ready handoff phrase
Before and after examples
Back/next behavior
Weak ask: Make back and next work correctly.
Exact Terms ask: Create a transition table listing current state, event, guard, next state, side effect, and rejected event for back, next, edit, submit, retry, cancel, refresh, and resume.
Error handling
Weak ask: Handle errors in each step.
Exact Terms ask: Build a transition table for every API-backed step showing success, validation error, timeout, auth failure, partial success, retry, and user cancel behavior.
Admin workflow
Weak ask: This approval flow has too many states.
Exact Terms ask: Write a transition table for the approval workflow with draft, submitted, review, changes requested, approved, rejected, expired, and reopened states.
Handoff examples by use case
Architecture prompt
Audit this workflow for Transition table and related concerns: Statechart, Invariant, Guard condition. Return states, rules, failure modes, and recovery behavior before code.
Implementation prompt
Implement Transition table for this app flow. Include data ownership, edge cases, fallback behavior, and acceptance tests.
Test prompt
Create tests that prove Transition table works across refresh, retry, back/next movement, partial failure, and return visits.
Common mistake
What goes wrong
Asking for code before defining states, transitions, persistence, and failure behavior.
Better move
Use Transition table with the related vocabulary trail: Statechart, Invariant, Guard condition.
Related terms
Missing a better term?
Turn feedback into vocabulary
If this page almost names your problem but misses the exact term, send the rough phrase and the term you expected. Accepted feedback becomes a better trigger, explanation, comparison page, or new term.