Check Progress Toward Next Level

You need to check whether your evidence record shows movement toward the bar for the next level. You do not want to wait for a formal review to find out.

Prerequisites

Complete Get Career Guidance Grounded in the Standard first. That guide covers how to set up Guide and Landmark, how to identify your gaps, and how to start to build evidence. The steps below assume you already have an evidence record. They assume you want to measure whether it grows.

You need:

• npx fit-landmark installed and connected to Map's activity layer (see Getting Started: Landmark for Engineers)
• Your email address registered in the organization roster
• At least one round of artifacts ingested (pull requests, design documents, or code reviews)

Check your readiness checklist

The readiness command shows a checklist of next-level markers. The checklist marks which markers your work already evidenced and which ones are still outstanding:

npx fit-landmark readiness --email you@example.com

Expected output:

  Readiness: you@example.com (J060 → J070)

    Architecture Design (practitioner):
      [x] Designs services with clear API boundaries (service-boundary-pr)
      [x] Documents trade-offs in design decisions (design-doc-auth)
      [x] Defines module boundaries for a bounded domain (RFC-019)
      [ ] Leads architecture for a product or platform area

    Code Review (practitioner):
      [x] Provides actionable feedback on design intent, not just style (review-coupling-pr)
      [ ] Mentors others on review quality
      [ ] Defines review standards for the area

    5/7 markers evidenced.
    Evidence coverage: 18/24 artifacts interpreted (75.0%).
    Missing: Leads architecture for a product or platform area; Mentors others on review quality; Defines review standards for the area

Without --target, readiness checks against the next level above your current level. To check against a specific level:

npx fit-landmark readiness --email you@example.com --target J080

The summary line at the bottom is the quickest signal. Compare the evidenced/total ratio to your last check. If the ratio grew, recent work produces visible results. The coverage line at the end shows how much of your artifact record backs the checklist. When fewer than 30% of your artifacts are interpreted, readiness suppresses the checklist entirely. It then prints the coverage figure with guidance on how to lift it.

Review the evidence behind each marker

When a marker shows [x], the readiness output names the artifact that evidenced it. The full rationale says why Landmark matched that artifact to that marker. To see it, use the evidence command filtered to a specific skill:

npx fit-landmark evidence --skill architecture-design --email you@example.com

Expected output:

  Evidence

    architecture-design: 3 matched, 1 unmatched
      [matched] Designs services with clear API boundaries
        rationale: A recent pull request introduced a new service boundary with documented...
        provenance: artifact_interpreted
      [matched] Documents trade-offs in design decisions
        rationale: Design doc for auth migration weighed three approaches...
        provenance: agent_attested
      [matched] Defines module boundaries for a bounded domain
        rationale: RFC-019 established module boundaries for the billing...
        provenance: artifact_interpreted
      [unmatched] Leads architecture for a product or platform area

    Evidence covers 18/24 artifacts.

Each matched row includes a rationale that explains the match. It also includes a provenance label that names where the evidence came from (see Know where each piece of evidence comes from). Review the rationales to understand what kind of work Landmark recognizes. The rationales also show what kind of work is not yet strong enough to match.

Check your growth timeline

The timeline command shows the highest evidenced proficiency level per skill per quarter. A level that appears for the first time means the evidence record caught up to growth in that area:

npx fit-landmark timeline --email you@example.com

Expected output:

  Growth timeline for you@example.com

    2025-Q1     architecture-design  working
    2025-Q2     architecture-design  working
    2025-Q3     architecture-design  practitioner
    2025-Q1     code-review          working
    2025-Q2     code-review          working

In this example, architecture-design moved from working to practitioner in Q3. That is a visible shift. The evidence record now reflects growth that previously existed only in practice.

Filter to a single skill to focus on one area:

npx fit-landmark timeline --email you@example.com --skill architecture-design

If the timeline shows the same proficiency level across multiple quarters with no change, one of two things happened. The work did not yet produce artifacts that match the next-level markers. Or nobody ingested the relevant artifacts. Check whether Landmark processed your recent pull requests and design documents. When coverage is below 30%, the timeline opens with a banner. The banner says a flat line reflects the measurement floor. It does not reflect an absence of growth.

Look up what the missing markers expect

When the readiness checklist shows outstanding markers, use the marker command to see what the standard defines for that proficiency level:

npx fit-landmark marker architecture-design --level practitioner

  Markers: architecture-design (practitioner)

    - Leads architecture for a product or platform area
    - Defines module boundaries and integration patterns
    - Evaluates architectural trade-offs across multiple dimensions
    - Documents architectural decisions with context and rationale

These are the observable indicators your standard defines for that proficiency level. When you know the full set, you can identify which kinds of work would naturally produce evidence for the missing markers.

Verify

You complete this guide when you can answer these questions:

• Does your evidence record grow? You ran npx fit-landmark readiness and compared the evidenced/total ratio to a previous check. The ratio changed. Or you understand why it did not.
• Do you know which markers are still missing? The readiness summary names the outstanding markers. You can describe what each one expects.
• Can you see the trajectory? You ran npx fit-landmark timeline. You can point to at least one skill where the proficiency level changed across quarters. Or you identified why no change appears yet.
• Do you understand the rationale behind matched markers? You ran npx fit-landmark evidence for at least one skill. You reviewed the rationale for each match.

If any of these are unclear, revisit the relevant step. The readiness checklist is the most direct measure. When missing markers from a previous check start to show as evidenced, recent work produces visible movement toward the bar.

What's next