Lifecycles contain ordered lists of phases, and each phase represents the stages of work on the release applications. You can customize the phases in a lifecycle to match how your applications move from the beginning to the end of the release cycle. In this way, the lifecycle is a template for the work in a release. When you create a release, you must select a lifecycle for it before you can assign release environments to the lifecycle phases.
Each lifecycle phase can have a gate. The gate contains requirements that must be met before an application can move to the next phase. You define quality statuses to include in the gates. See Creating and assigning quality statuses.
The following figure shows the default lifecycle, which has five phases, including a development phase, testing and certification phases, and a production phase. By default, this lifecycle has no gates, but you can add gates manually.
If the default lifecycle does not accommodate your release process, you can modify it or create one.