What it is
Steady-state production
Operate is live, steady-state running: watched by telemetry, kept current, and wrapped in the protected-asset and kill-switch guarantees that apply to anything customers depend on.
Why its own phase
Running ≠ building
Running something is a different job from building it. Naming Operate as a phase means live systems get ongoing care and the strictest guardrails, instead of being treated as simply “done.”
A worked example
The highest bar
In Operate the bar for change is highest — every edit is a production edit: gated, reversible and reviewed, because real people now depend on it.