Can a new status be added to a live product type at any time? What happens immediately?

Yes — an admin can add a new status to a live product type at any time, and it becomes available immediately in that type's workflow. There's no downtime or release needed: because statuses are data, adding one is a configuration change that the running system picks up at once. So if a business realizes it needs an extra step — say a "Quality Check" status between Packed and Out for…

Yes — an admin can add a new status to a live product type at any time, and it becomes available immediately in that type's workflow. There's no downtime or release needed: because statuses are data, adding one is a configuration change that the running system picks up at once. So if a business realizes it needs an extra step — say a "Quality Check" status between Packed and Out for Delivery — it can add it on the fly and start using it on the next order. This is the practical payoff of data-driven statuses.