{"head":{"title":"What Are Acceptance Criteria? Definition and Examples","description":"Acceptance criteria are the testable conditions a feature must meet to count as done. How to write them, an example and the mistakes that cause rework.","canonical":"https://oceanlab.in/glossary/acceptance-criteria"},"crumbs":[{"name":"Home","path":"/"},{"name":"Glossary","path":"/glossary"},{"name":"acceptance criteria","path":"/glossary/acceptance-criteria"}],"slug":"acceptance-criteria","term":"Acceptance criteria","aka":["AC","conditions of satisfaction"],"category":"Running a build","short":"The testable conditions a feature must meet before the person who asked for it accepts it as done.","body":[["Acceptance criteria turn a request into a short list of checks anyone can run. Each one describes a result you can see, not how the code works: given this situation, when the user does this, then this happens."],["They usually sit under a ",{"href":"/glossary/user-story","text":"user story"}," and are agreed before work starts. Together with the team's ",{"href":"/glossary/definition-of-done","text":"definition of done"},", they decide whether a piece of work can be closed."]],"why":["Most arguments about whether a feature is finished are really arguments about what was asked for. Written criteria settle that up front. They also give testers a script, help engineers estimate, and make a ",{"href":"/glossary/fixed-price","text":"fixed-price contract"}," or ",{"href":"/glossary/milestone","text":"milestone"}," payment easy to sign off."],"example":["Story: a clinic manager can export last month's bookings. Criteria: the export is a CSV; it includes patient name, doctor, date and status; cancelled bookings are included and marked; a month with no bookings gives an empty file with headers, not an error."],"inBuild":["Acceptance criteria are what a milestone is signed off against. OceanLab can bill product builds per milestone, so each milestone needs criteria both sides agreed before the work began."],"mistakes":[["Writing them after the feature is built, so they describe what was made instead of what was needed."],["Leaving out the unhappy paths: empty states, errors, permissions and slow networks."],["Describing the solution (\"use a dropdown\") instead of the outcome the user needs."]],"related":[{"href":"/glossary/user-story","label":"User story","detail":"A short description of a feature from the point of view of the person who needs it, and why they need it."},{"href":"/glossary/definition-of-done","label":"Definition of done (DoD)","detail":"The shared checklist every piece of work must pass, such as tested, reviewed and deployed, before the team calls it finished."},{"href":"/glossary/milestone","label":"Milestone","detail":"A checkpoint in a project where an agreed piece of work is delivered, checked and, often, paid for."},{"href":"/glossary/change-request","label":"Change request","detail":"A written request to change the agreed scope of a project, with its effect on cost and timeline agreed before work starts."}],"tools":[],"links":[{"href":"/software","label":"Software by industry","detail":"Systems we build per industry, with guides and tools."},{"href":"/case-studies","label":"Case studies","detail":"Product builds by OceanLab, by industry."}],"sources":[],"legal":false,"updatedAt":"2026-10-25"}