This specifies the state of the protected tunnel as active (label placed in the LFIB and ready to apply to incoming packets), ready (label entry created but not yet in the LFIB), or partial (label entry not fully created). Only active(1) means traffic would truly reroute instantly if the primary failed right now -- a tunnel stuck at ready(2) or partial(3) looks 'protected' in inventory but would not actually forward traffic without additional programming delay. For example, an admin auditing FRR coverage after a platform upgrade might find several tunnels stuck at partial(3), meaning they would experience a real outage rather than sub-50ms protection if their primary link failed before label programming finishes.