Direct answer
A project stores two separate pieces of process state: workflow progress and a workflow checkpoint. Progress tracks how far a project has moved through generation and setup; the checkpoint specifically holds where a review was left off, so reopening a project later resumes from that point instead of forcing a reviewer to re-evaluate everything from the start. Losing that distinction is why teams sometimes re-review content that was already checked.
Progress and checkpoint answer different questions
Progress answers "how far has this project gotten." Checkpoint answers "where did the last reviewer stop, and what had already been decided." A project can have high progress and still have an outdated checkpoint if new content was generated after the last review — that gap is exactly what the checkpoint state exists to make visible.
Why this matters more on longer review cycles
For a project reviewed once and shipped immediately, checkpoint state barely matters — there's no gap between generation and review to track. It matters on projects that go through multiple review rounds over days or weeks, where different people, or the same person on a different day, need to know exactly what was already reviewed versus what changed since.
Regenerating content invalidates the checkpoint for that content
If a section of generated content is regenerated after a checkpoint was set, that checkpoint no longer accurately describes the current state of the project — the reviewed version and the current version have diverged. Treat any regenerate after a review checkpoint as a signal that the affected section needs another review pass, not as something the previous checkpoint already covers.
Common mistakes
- Assuming a project's overall progress being high means every section has been reviewed, when only some sections may have reached checkpoint.
- Regenerating content after review without re-flagging that section for another review pass.
- Not checking checkpoint state before resuming a review, leading to redundant re-review of sections that were already signed off.
Checklist
- Check checkpoint state before starting a review session, not just overall progress.
- Treat any regenerate after a checkpoint as invalidating that checkpoint for the affected section.
- Use checkpoint state to resume multi-session reviews instead of re-evaluating the entire project each time.
Operating rule
Progress tells you how far the project has come; checkpoint tells you what's actually been reviewed — don't let a high progress number stand in for a review that hasn't happened yet.