Life of a Log Entry under Consensus (Raft/Paxos-style) Diagram

The Commit Point

A client write is proposed as one entry for one slot in the shared log
The leader appends the entry to its own log in the current epoch/term before sending it anywhere
The quorum vote on the entry is the second voting round — the first round only elected the leader
Once a quorum acknowledges, the entry is committed: durable, ordered, and never lost

While the Quorum Is Missing

Slow or failed nodes keep the leader below a quorum, so the entry waits and the leader retries
Retrying is safe: the entry is still uncommitted and the vote can simply be run again
A client that hears nothing can tell neither a slow leader from a crashed one, so it retries elsewhere

Term Changes Decide What Survives

Discovering a higher epoch/term makes the leader step down at once
A new leader may replace uncommitted entries of the old term with its own, so an old entry can be dropped
Only a candidate whose log is at least as up-to-date as a majority may win, so committed entries are never overwritten
The retry lands at the new leader and is proposed afresh as a brand-new entry