DORA software delivery metrics - verbatim definitions

DORA measures software delivery performance. Its current guidance documents five metrics, described as having evolved "from the original four keys to the current five-metric model", grouped as throughput and instability (https://dora.dev/guides/dora-metrics-four-keys/, verified 2026-07-19).

The quoted block below is duplicated verbatim in exec-quality-narrative/references/dora-metrics.md; update both together.

Throughput

• Change lead time (originally "lead time for changes"): "The amount of time it takes for a change to go from committed to version control to deployed in production."
• Deployment frequency: "The number of deployments over a given period or the time between deployments."
• Failed deployment recovery time: "The time it takes to recover from a deployment that fails and requires immediate intervention."

Instability

• Change fail rate (originally "change failure rate"): "The ratio of deployments that require immediate intervention following a deployment."
• Deployment rework rate: "The ratio of deployments that are unplanned but happen as a result of an incident in production."

Which figures the digest can compute

• Deployment frequency and change fail rate are usually computable from the same CI data the digest already reads; include them as delivery context in their own section and carry them into the portfolio roll-up. They also survive cross-team comparison best, needing only deployment records and incident flags.
• Change lead time and failed deployment recovery time need commit timestamps and incident records, so mark them partial rather than guessing, and never report an estimate as computed.
• Escape-defect rate, pass rate, and flake debt are not DORA metrics; they measure defect leakage and suite health, not delivery. Keep them beside the DORA figures, never inside them: a single informed reader will catch the conflation.