Promoting a dataset from Silver to Gold: a contract-first playbook

Gold is not a marketing tier. It is a contract, and the contract either passes or it does not.

The checks

• Freshness. The SLA has been met for the last 28 days.
• Quality. Row counts, null rates, and referential integrity within declared bands.
• Retention. Storage policy matches classification tier.
• Documentation. Every column has a description; every foreign key has an owner.

If any check fails, the Gold pill does not appear. There is no override. There is a path to fix the check, but there is no path to ship around it.