Components are a formally versioned Factory product: semantic versioning, visible status metadata, ownership, supported variants, and accessibility review dates.
Upstream releases move through a controlled lifecycle—monitor, evaluate, integrate, verify, promote, deploy. Detection and testing are automated, but production deployment, breaking contract changes, major upgrades, component retirement, accessibility claims, content migrations, and governance exceptions all require human approval.
A Factory Steward Agent monitors dependencies, security advisories, compatibility, components, accessibility regressions, documentation, recipes, and client-version drift. It prepares evidence and release candidates; human product and accessibility owners approve every meaningful change.