stagesfor

Stagesfor is a term used in process design and software to describe the set of stages applicable to a task or resource. It is not a universal standard, but a label that appears in documentation and codebases to denote a lifecycle mapping from an item type to a sequence of phases.

Typically, stagesfor can refer to a function, method, or data structure that returns the ordered list of stages for a given input. For example, stagesFor('user_registration') might yield ["draft","review","activated","completed"]. In other contexts, stagesfor can be a field or property that lists the lifecycle stages associated with an entity, such as a product or document.

Usage is common in workflow engines, state machines, and pipeline tooling where processes are broken into discrete phases. Implementations vary by domain, with names and stage labels localized, and with stages sometimes optional or dependent on conditions. The concept supports dynamic routing, validation, and auditing by exposing which stages apply to each task type.

Etymology is straightforward: it combines stages with the preposition for, used as a noun phrase or function name. Variants include stages_for, stagesFor, or simply a stage list for a given type, depending on coding style.

See also: lifecycle, workflow, state machine, stage-based design, process modeling.