> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.tylon.app/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# The flow
> Where a Tylon team says what each stage does to Git: the statuses, the branch matrix, and who may move a card into each one.
Configured once, per project, and applied the same way every time. This is the
screen that makes moving a card deterministic enough to automate.
## The statuses
In order, with the role it takes to move a card **into** each. In the flow
above, four stages are a member's and **In production** is a maintainer's —
promoting to production is not the same permission as starting work.
The first is the **Backlog**, marked `born here`: every card is born there and
it never touches Git. One per flow.
## The matrix
The screen says it in one line:
> Statuses across the top. Repositories down the side. Each cell is where a
> branch is cut from and where it merges — **empty means that stage does not
> touch that repository**.
So reading the row for `checkout-web` under *In development*: the branch is cut
from `main`, and nothing merges. Under *In production*, the merge goes to
`main`.
And `checkout-infra` is empty under *In development* — that repository joins
later in the flow. A card touching only the web app and the API gets two
branches, not three.
An empty cell is not "not configured yet". It is a statement: this stage does
nothing to this repository. That is how a flow says a repository only enters
at staging, or only ever receives a merge and is never cut from.
## Branch names
A template — `feature/{{number}}-{{title}}` by default. It matters more than it
looks: the board recognises branches by this convention, so a branch named
anything else never reaches the card it was cut for. Before cutting one by
hand, ask Tylon what it should be called.
## Presets
**Apply preset** replaces the statuses and the matrix with a shape that
already works — trunk-based, or a staging train. Faster than drawing five
columns and safer than guessing which cell should be empty.
A new project starts from the flow of one that already exists and owns it
from then on. Changing this one changes nothing anywhere else.