Acceptance Criteria: The specific conditions a user story must meet before it is considered done.
Example
"The reset link expires after 30 minutes" and "an unregistered email shows an error" are acceptance criteria.
Why Acceptance Criteria matter for IT interns
They tell you exactly when your work is complete. Read them before you start, not after.
Where you will hear it
You will hear this term in team routines such as stand-ups, sprint planning, and retrospectives. If someone uses it and you are not sure what they mean in your project, it is completely fine to ask; every team uses terms a little differently.
Related terms
- Agile: A way of working where teams build software in small pieces, get feedback often and adjust their plans…
- Backlog: A list of work the team may do in the future — features, bugs and improvements — usually ordered by priority.
- Bug: A problem where the software doesn’t behave the way it is supposed to.
- Daily Stand-up: A short daily team meeting, often 15 minutes, where each person shares what they did, what they will do next…
- Epic: A large piece of work that is broken down into smaller user stories.
- Kanban: A way of managing work on a board with columns such as To Do, In Progress and Done, focusing on a steady flow…
Previous term: .gitignore | Next term: Accountability
Related guides
Frequently asked questions
What are Acceptance Criteria?
The specific conditions a user story must meet before it is considered done.
What is an example of Acceptance Criteria?
"The reset link expires after 30 minutes" and "an unregistered email shows an error" are acceptance criteria.
Why do Acceptance Criteria matter for IT interns?
They tell you exactly when your work is complete. Read them before you start, not after.
Explore more internship terms
The IT Internship Glossary explains 199 terms you will hear before and during your internship, with simple definitions and real examples.
Browse all 199 terms
About the author
Dhaivat has 16+ years of experience in the IT industry, working on AI and cloud technologies, project delivery, and engineering leadership. He has interviewed and mentored many interns, wrote The Lost Intern, and runs the non-commercial Career Impact Initiative, mentoring students for free.