🧭 FSH Style Guide: Managing the `status` Field

🎯 Purpose of the status Field

The status field in FHIR resources shows the lifecycle state of the resource:

• draft: In development
• active: Approved and ready for use
• retired: No longer in use
• unknown: Status is not known

This field is required in many FHIR resources and is key for version control and governance.

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🚫 Why Not Set status in Each Resource by Default

Manually setting status in every resource can cause:

• Inconsistency between authors
• Maintenance overhead when updating
• Redundancy, especially if most resources share the same status

Instead, set it once at the project level for consistency.

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✅ Setting status for the Whole Project

Use sushi-config.yaml to define the default status:

status: draft