## TL;DR

Stripe will move it to active (via customer.subscription.updated plus invoice.payment\_succeeded) or to incomplete\_expired if payment never lands. The handler reads data.object.items.data and looks up the tier.

## Steps

1. Read `data.object.status`. Provision only when it is `active` or `trialing`.
2. If status is `incomplete`, the first payment has not succeeded. Do not provision. Stripe will move it to `active` (via `customer.subscription.updated` plus `invoice.payment_succeeded`) or to `incomplete_expired` if payment never lands.
3. If status is `incomplete_expired`, the signup failed outright. Treat it as an abandoned signup, optionally email the customer to retry.
4. On `active` or `trialing`: create the account, grant the plan's entitlements, store the subscription id against your user. Return 200.

## When to use

You are seeing this: A subscription object now exists. Use this skill when you run into "Stripe event: customer.subscription.created, provision only if the status is real".

## When not to use

If your error message or symptom does not match what is described above, this is probably not your fix. Search for your exact error text instead of forcing this one to fit.

## Versions

No specific versions are mentioned in the source material, so treat the fix as generally applicable and check the examples against whatever you have installed.

## Why this happens

The original report does not dig into a root cause. It documents the symptom and the fix that resolved it.