This is no way to tell whether the state/status reflects the current version of the spec. For example, the connection ready status in a catalog source CR becomes stale after an index change in the spec. Automation built on top can be misled thinking the new index is ready and move on to check if there is a pending upgrade in the subscriptions.

1. Create a catalog source, wait for the connection status to become ready
2. Change the index field value
3. Dump the catalog source right after the change

Stale connection status with the new index value

observedGeneration field populated as described by:
https://github.com/kubernetes/community/blob/master/contributors/devel/sig-architecture/api-conventions.md#typical-status-properties

We observed the window for the stale status could be as long as 2 minutes in scale lab with many virtual SNOs. See OCPBUGS-2813 for more info.