# Route (/docs/primitives/route)



A **Route** is the decision that binds <Term name="Work" /> to a <Term name="Worker" /> —
<TechnicalName public="Route" api="Decision" /> joined with its `Explanation`.
It is not just an assignment; it is an *explained* assignment. Every route
records who was eligible, how each candidate scored, and why the winner won, so a
routing decision can be read back and defended long after it was made.

A strategy produces the ranking. Ductor ships more than twenty — weighted
round-robin, least-loaded, geographic, SLA-deadline, yield-optimized, and
learning strategies (Thompson-sampling and LinUCB bandits) that route toward
workers who historically convert. Strategies are versioned and hot-swappable, and
a candidate can run in shadow against production traffic to reveal exactly where
its decisions would diverge before it is trusted.

<Fact label="Status">
  shipping — decisions, explanations, strategies, and shadow campaigns exist today; market-cleared routes carry the winner's worker identity and clearing price in exact micro-units.
</Fact>

## Outcomes [#outcomes]

A route resolves to a `DecisionOutcome`:

<StateGrid label="Route outcomes">
  <StateCard title="assigned" code="DecisionOutcome" tone="commit">
    Work is bound to a worker.
  </StateCard>

  <StateCard title="queued · queued_for_claim" code="DecisionOutcome" tone="worker">
    Held for a worker to pull, in claim-based pools.
  </StateCard>

  <StateCard title="no_eligible_recipients" code="DecisionOutcome" tone="muted">
    No worker was eligible under the pool's rules.
  </StateCard>

  <StateCard title="dropped · rejected · error" code="DecisionOutcome" tone="halt">
    A visible terminal state — never a silent disappearance.
  </StateCard>
</StateGrid>

## Where to go deeper [#where-to-go-deeper]

<Cards>
  <Card title="Routing pipeline" href="/docs/concepts/routing-pipeline">
    The Validate → Enrich → Filter → Select → Assign stages behind a route.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Strategies" href="/docs/strategies">
    How candidates are ranked and selected.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Route authoring" href="/docs/management/route-authoring">
    Declaring and versioning the routes that clear work.
  </Card>
</Cards>