Let's say you PUT the following document into _replicator:

{
    "_id": "my_rep",
    "source":  "http://myserver.com:5984/foo",
    "target":  "bar",
    "create_target":  true
}

In the couch log you'll see 2 entries like these:

[Thu, 17 Feb 2011 19:43:59 GMT] [info] [<0.291.0>] Document `my_rep` triggered replication `c0ebe9256695ff083347cbf95f93e280+create_target`
[Thu, 17 Feb 2011 19:44:37 GMT] [info] [<0.124.0>] Replication `c0ebe9256695ff083347cbf95f93e280+create_target` finished (triggered by document `my_rep`)

As soon as the replication is triggered, the document will be updated by CouchDB with 3 new fields:

{
    "_id": "my_rep",
    "source":  "http://myserver.com:5984/foo",
    "target":  "bar",
    "create_target":  true,
    "_replication_id":  "c0ebe9256695ff083347cbf95f93e280",
    "_replication_state":  "triggered",
    "_replication_state_time":  1297974122
}

Special fields set by the replicator start with the prefix _replication_.

When the replication finishes, it will update the _replication_state field (and _replication_state_time) with the value completed, so the document will look like:

{
    "_id": "my_rep",
    "source":  "http://myserver.com:5984/foo",
    "target":  "bar",
    "create_target":  true,
    "_replication_id":  "c0ebe9256695ff083347cbf95f93e280",
    "_replication_state":  "completed",
    "_replication_state_time":  1297974122
}

When an error happens during replication, the _replication_state field is set to error (and _replication_state gets updated of course).

When you PUT/POST a document to the _replicator database, CouchDB will attempt to start the replication up to 10 times (configurable under [replicator], parameter max_replication_retry_count). If it fails on the first attempt, it waits 5 seconds before doing a second attempt. If the second attempt fails, it waits 10 seconds before doing a third attempt. If the third attempt fails, it waits 20 seconds before doing a fourth attempt (each attempt doubles the previous wait period). When an attempt fails, the Couch log will show you something like:

[error] [<0.149.0>] Error starting replication `67c1bb92010e7abe35d7d629635f18b6+create_target` (document `my_rep_2`): {db_not_found,<<"could not open http://myserver:5986/foo/">>

There are only 3 possible values for the _replication_state field: triggered, completed and error. Continuous replications never get their state set to completed.