Guide Rails Overview

Guide Rails allow teams to set measurable goals for any metric in GuideMode and track progress over time. Whether you want to reduce cycle time, improve PR merge rates, or increase deployment frequency, guide rails help you define success and monitor your team’s performance against those goals.

Why Use Guide Rails?

Benefit	Description
Clear Goals	Define specific, measurable objectives for your team
Real-time Tracking	See at a glance whether you’re on track, at risk, or off track
Historical Context	Set guide rails based on your actual historical performance data
AI Assistance	Let Giulia recommend guide rails based on your natural language goals
Team Alignment	Share guide rails across teams and copy successful configurations

Core Concepts

Guide Rail Types

GuideMode supports four guide rail types to match different KPI patterns:

Type	Direction	Example	When to Use
Minimum	Higher is better	Code quality score >= 85	Metrics you want to maximize
Maximum	Lower is better	Cycle time <= 5 days	Metrics you want to minimize
Exact	Close to value	SLA compliance = 95%	Metrics with a specific goal
Range	Between bounds	PR size 50-200 lines	Metrics with acceptable bounds

Granularity

Choose how often guide rails are measured:

Granularity	Use Case	History Shown
Daily	High-frequency metrics needing close monitoring	~30 days
Weekly	Most team metrics (recommended default)	~12 weeks
Monthly	Slower-changing strategic metrics	~12 months
Quarterly	Long-term objectives and OKRs	~8 quarters

Available Metrics

Guide rails can be set on any measure from GuideMode’s analytics cubes:

• Discovery Flow - Research validation times, conversion rates
• Delivery Flow - Cycle time, lead time, PR merge rates, throughput
• Deployment Flow - DORA metrics, deployment frequency, change failure rate
• AI Productivity - Code generation rates, AI tool adoption metrics

Finding Guide Rails in the UI

Guide rails appear on the Team Detail page. Navigate to any team to see:

1. KPI Dashboard - A grid of KPI cards showing all active guide rails for the team
2. Add Guide Rail Button - Opens the guide rail creation wizard or AI assistant
3. Guide Rail Actions - Edit, comment on, or archive individual guide rails

You can also view guide rails across all teams from the Team Guides dashboard, which groups guide rails by team and shows overall status counts.

Understanding KPI Cards

Each guide rail is displayed as a KPI card with the following elements:

Status Indicators

Status	Color	Meaning
On Track	Green	Current value meets or exceeds the guide rail
At Risk	Yellow	Current value is within 10% of the guide rail threshold
Off Track	Red	Current value is not meeting the guide rail

Card Elements

• Metric Name - The measure being tracked (e.g., “Average Cycle Time”)
• Status Badge - Visual indicator of current status
• Current Value - The latest measured value in the appropriate format
• Trend Arrow - Shows direction of change (improving, stable, declining)
• Guide Rail Line - Displays the guide rail value for comparison
• Historical Chart - Bar chart showing performance over the selected granularity
• Granularity Label - Shows whether tracking is daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly

Reading the Chart

The bar chart on each KPI card shows historical performance:

• Each bar represents one period (day, week, month, or quarter)
• Bar colors indicate status for that period (green/yellow/red)
• A dashed line shows the guide rail value
• Hover over bars to see exact values and dates

Guide Rail Status Calculation

GuideMode automatically calculates status based on the guide rail type:

For Minimum guide rails (higher is better):

• On Track: Current value >= guide rail value
• At Risk: Current value >= 90% of guide rail value
• Off Track: Current value < 90% of guide rail value

For Maximum guide rails (lower is better):

• On Track: Current value <= guide rail value
• At Risk: Current value <= 110% of guide rail value
• Off Track: Current value > 110% of guide rail value

For Exact and Range guide rails:

• Status is calculated based on proximity to the guide rail value or range bounds

Next Steps

• Creating Guide Rails - Learn how to create guide rails manually or with AI assistance
• Delivery Flow - Explore available delivery metrics
• DORA Metrics - Set guide rails for industry-standard metrics