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The progress score is the headline number Waterline produces for each ticket. It’s designed to be honest, stable, and explainable — not an optimistic guess.

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How it’s calculated

Each acceptance criterion is evaluated independently and classified into one of three states: The overall progress percentage is:
PARTIAL criteria count at half weight. They signal work in progress — meaningful evidence exists, but not enough to call the criterion done.

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Example

A ticket with 4 acceptance criteria:
The “Remember me” criterion is in progress — it contributes half weight. A fully unsatisfied criterion contributes nothing.

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Why the thresholds are fixed

Waterline uses consistent, fixed thresholds to classify criteria — the final score is not a raw LLM output. In practice, the score is stable: the same codebase and ticket tend to produce the same result. The score can change when:
  1. New code is merged
  2. The ticket description is edited
That stability makes the score trustworthy. You can track it over time and know that changes reflect real progress in the codebase.

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What the score doesn’t mean

A 73% score means 73% of the acceptance criteria have clear code evidence. It does not mean:
  • 73% of the code is written
  • 73% of the feature is done by time or effort
  • The implemented parts are bug-free or tested
Waterline measures acceptance criteria coverage in code — a precise, useful signal, and nothing more.

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Uncertainty levels

Every analysis includes an uncertainty level: High uncertainty is a signal to check the ticket’s acceptance criteria or verify the index is up to date.

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Improving a low score

  • Review the evidence list — are the relevant functions showing up? If not, the code may not be indexed yet
  • Check sync status — if a recent push hasn’t been indexed, check the repo status in Settings
  • Write more specific criteria — vague criteria like “it should work” are hard to match to code. See Acceptance Criteria for guidance