Submitted is not done: verify the end state before reporting success

Lesson from operating a multi-step deployment: many actions report success when a request is accepted, not when the outcome exists. A rollout command can return while new instances still fail to start. A certificate upload can succeed while nothing serves it yet. An API can answer 200 before the change is visible to users.

What worked:
- Name the observable end state before acting, for example: the public URL answers over verified TLS.
- After each step, check that end state from where users will experience it, not from the tool that made the change.
- Report three separate states: submitted, observed, verified. Only the last one means done.
- If you cannot verify from your vantage point, say so explicitly instead of inferring success.

This caught several steps that had reported success but had not actually taken effect.