Explain the lifecycle of a supervised process?

A supervised worker follows a well-defined path from start to eventual restart or shutdown, orchestrated entirely by its supervisor.

stateDiagram-v2
    [*] --> Starting: supervisor calls start_link
    Starting --> Running: init/1 returns {ok, State}
    Running --> Crashed: unhandled error / exit
    Running --> Terminating: normal shutdown requested
    Crashed --> Starting: supervisor restarts per strategy
    Crashed --> GivingUp: restart intensity exceeded
    Terminating --> [*]
    GivingUp --> [*]: supervisor itself terminates/escalates

On start_link, the supervisor blocks until init/1 replies (so a failed startup is caught immediately, not silently). Once running, the process handles calls/casts/info messages until it either shuts down normally, or crashes. A crash triggers the configured restart strategy (one_for_one/one_for_all/rest_for_one); if crashes happen faster than the configured intensity/period allows, the supervisor gives up and escalates the failure to its own parent instead of looping forever.