Quality gate (QA gate)
A quality gate is a blocking check in the production pipeline: if the criterion fails — performance, uniqueness, compliance — the release stops. The standard ceases to be an intention and becomes a mechanism.
In practice
Our typical gates before publication: page-to-page similarity below threshold, required fields present, Core Web Vitals passing on template, zero broken links, no forbidden style patterns found. A gate does not negotiate; that is its virtue. Exceptions are codified as rules, never granted as one-time workarounds.