Data Date

The moment a plan is true as of. Before it, the Record; after it, the calculation.

A plan is a claim about the future made from a known present, and the Data Date names that present. Everything before it is what actually happened — real starts, real finishes, promises kept and broken. Everything after it is computed from the logic that remains: work already done falls out, work not yet started may begin no earlier than this morning, and every date, every Float and the whole Critical Path are worked forward from here.

It is load-bearing because it is the difference between a schedule and a wish. Move the Data Date forward and the plan moves honestly with it — the same logic, measured from a later morning, showing exactly what the delay cost. A plan with no stated Data Date cannot do this, and so tends to be quietly reinterpreted rather than recalculated: dates slide, nobody can say when, and the body loses the one signal it most needs (Honesty about time, Measure everything, manage to the milestones).

The discipline the word carries is one sentence: a plan states its Data Date on every view that was calculated, so that what anyone reads is today's truth rather than a picture from a month ago that still looks current. The natural moment to advance it is the weekly Heartbeat, where what was done is recorded and the remaining logic recalculated in the same motion (The Turn).

Its paper floor is the date written at the top of the sheet the day the sheet was worked. That is the entire instrument, and it is why this is a discipline a Cell with a notebook can keep perfectly (Screens and paper, The clock is read, never computed).

Also called: the status date · the time-now line Stands on: The Record · Honesty about time · The clock is read, never computed Opens onto: Float · Critical Path · The Game Engine · Work Deck · The look-ahead · Milestone · The Heartbeat In play: the table — written at the top of every calculated view Sources: Projects/the term pages/Data Date.md (draft, unreviewed; names the scheduling discipline it takes the word from) · Projects/the term pages/The Game Engine.md, Work Deck.md (drafts) · lionsberg.wiki: Float Open: Nothing states what a body does when different parts of one plan were last worked on different days — whether the deck carries one Data Date or one per card.