Action lifecycle

Task and prerequisites

Use this guide to take a finding from review to an evidence-backed outcome. You need an authorized finding, an accountable workload owner and the permissions required for its decision controls.

The customer's own change process governs implementation. Financial verification also needs complete matching billing evidence and the applicable attribution contract; an approval or owner completion report is not sufficient.

Customer-controlled authority

Costframe records proposed work and its review history. Cloud collection remains read-only; the customer controls implementation in the provider environment.

Start with the finding's evidence and readiness. Identify an owner who can assess business need and coordinate the external change.

Assignment records responsibility, while approval records a decision about work. Neither state confirms that a resource has changed.

Use the action's current status when communicating with an implementation team.

Verification boundary

An owner can report implementation completion and provide context about the external change. That report remains separate from observations and savings verification.

Supported observation assessments compare retained before-and-after evidence with the reported completion time. Missing, stale, or conflicting observations can make an assessment inconclusive.

Resource absence alone does not prove deletion. An assessment can explain what was observed without advancing the action to verified or certifying a financial outcome.

• Keep requested external work pending until a trusted result confirms completion.
• Read the stated reason when evidence is insufficient or verification fails.

Prepare approval and implementation

Review dependency uncertainty and provider-specific rollback guidance before implementation, particularly for shutdown or deletion proposals. Use the available approval controls for work that requires approval; an action must not bypass a finding's approval requirement.

Record the reason for a rejected or blocked decision so the owner knows what needs to change. A schedule expresses planned timing.

Confirm the actual provider change through the customer's normal change process and retain the relevant reference.

Interpret measured cost differences

A same-currency billing comparison can measure a reduction between complete periods. The reduction remains attribution-inconclusive until the expected mechanism and other changes are validated.

Changing workloads, rates, or scope can affect the comparison. Keep a measured difference separate from verified realized savings, and retain the baseline and comparison period.

Failed financial verification does not automatically mean implementation failed; inspect the technical observation and financial result separately.

Review history before closing work

Use the action history to check who requested work, which decision was recorded, and what evidence supports its current state. A linked issue or sent notification does not prove external implementation.

When a required source remains unavailable, keep the verification limitation visible to the owner and Finance. Report completed work and verified savings as separate outcomes so that a closed review does not become an unsupported savings claim.

Steps and expected result

Open the finding and read its source, confidence and readiness. Assign the responsible reviewer, resolve required evidence gaps and record the permitted approval decision.

Implement externally through the customer's change process, then report the actual completion time and reference. Inspect the subsequent technical observation and financial verification separately.

The expected result is a traceable decision and honestly labeled evidence state. Potential monthly savings, implemented work, a measured unattributed difference and verified realized savings must remain separate in the review and export.

Troubleshooting inconclusive verification

Check for missing billing dates, changed resource scope, currency mismatch, stale metrics and unrelated usage or price changes. An absent resource in one observation does not prove deletion.

A complete before-and-after total can establish a measured difference while attribution remains inconclusive. Keep that state and the reason visible; do not enter the estimate as realized savings to close the action.