template
Standup update template for engineers
Engineering standups fail in one specific way: the work is real but invisible, so the update becomes "continued work on the auth refactor" for four days running. The template below forces the two details that fix that, a number and a name.
Take the skeleton, then read the three worked days under it. Or paste your branch names and half sentences into the box and let it do the shaping.
Branch names and half sentences are enough.
5 free a month. No signup to try the first one.
scraps
Half sentences are fine.
Sat 31 Oct
Nothing to report.
Nothing planned yet.
Nothing blocking.
Paste anything on the left. Half sentences are fine.
5 of 5 free updates left in October. the Pass
Statusly rewrites what you actually did. It does not invent work, and it never will.
Three engineering days, written out
Shipping, reviewing, and stuck. Most weeks are these three in some order.
*Done* • Shipped webhook retries, 3 tries with backoff, behind the retry flag. • Deleted the old inline retry, 120 lines gone. *Next* • Turn the flag on for internal, watch the queue depth for an hour. *Blocked* • Nothing blocking.
*Done* • Reviewed 4 PRs, including Sam's migration. Asked for the ordering change. • Fixed the CI cache so builds are back under 6 minutes. *Next* • My own branch: the retry tests. *Blocked* • Nothing blocking.
*Done* • auth-refactor rebased onto main. 3 tests still red, all in the session suite. • Narrowed the failure to the cookie expiry helper, not the middleware. *Next* • Fix the expiry helper, then rerun the suite. *Blocked* • Waiting on Priya for the staging key, 3 days. Cannot verify the SSO path without it.
The skeleton
Fill the angle brackets. Keep the field labels exactly as they are so your channel stays scannable.
- Put the flag or environment in Done. "Shipped behind a flag" and "shipped to everyone" are different facts.
- Review work belongs in Done. It is the most under-reported engineering work there is.
- If a test is red, say how many and where. "Tests failing" invites a question you will have to answer anyway.
*Done* • <what merged or shipped, plus the flag or environment> • <what you reviewed or fixed for someone else> *Next* • <the first thing you will open tomorrow> *Blocked* • <person or system, and days waiting>
Engineering-specific traps
Four ways an engineering update goes wrong, and the one-line fix for each.
The branch name as an update
"Worked on auth-refactor" means nothing to anyone not in that branch. Say what changed inside it.
The invisible week
Four days of "continued work on X" reads as no progress. Add the day count and one concrete detail each day.
The silent blocker
If you are waiting on a person, name them in Blocked. That is what the field is for and it is not an accusation.
The unshipped ship
Merged is not shipped and shipped is not rolled out. Be exact and nobody has to ask.
A template still leaves you an empty box tomorrow.
This page helps once. What makes the morning stop hurting is that Statusly keeps yesterday, so what you said you would do next is already sitting in today’s Done, waiting for you to confirm it or correct it.
The blocker you never cleared is still flagged, because you never said it cleared. Correcting an update takes 30 seconds. Writing one from nothing is what you have been avoiding.
carry-over
You said you’d write the retry tests. Done?
Still blocked on Priya, 3 days.
The scraps box is empty, and optional.
Should I mention every PR?
No. Mention what merged, what you reviewed in total as a count, and anything a teammate is waiting on.
What if my work spans a week?
Report the increment and the day count. Day 3 of 5 with one concrete detail is a perfectly good update.
Can I paste my git log into it?
Yes. Commit messages are exactly the kind of scraps the box below is built to read.