# Retirement Freeze Policy

**Policy key:** `retirement-freeze`
**applies_to:** every change to `state-hub` from 2026-08-20 until the archive
window closes
**Assessment outcomes:** `Freeze-Ok` | `Freeze-Failed`
**Owner task:** `STATE-WP-0079-T01`
**Related:** `docs/retirement-cutover-slice-plan.md`, `SHR-INV-0001`,
decision `747011c6`, `prj-state-hub-retirement/GOAL.md`

## Why this exists

State Hub is being retired: its 425 inventoried surfaces move, are replaced, or
are retired under `STATE-WP-0079`. A retiring component attracts a specific
failure — work lands here because this is where the code already is, and each
such change quietly re-establishes State Hub as the permanent owner of something
the program is trying to relocate. Every one of those makes the cutover larger
and the archive later.

The freeze does not stop work. It constrains *what kind* of work is admissible.

## The rule

A change to `state-hub` is admissible only if it does at least one of:

1. **Preserves compatibility** — keeps existing callers working across a cutover
   step (adapters, dual-run shims, writeback reconciliation).
2. **Enables extraction** — makes a capability easier to move to its inventoried
   owner (seam-cutting, dependency untangling, contract extraction).
3. **Reduces scope** — deletes, retires, or delegates a surface.
4. **Fixes operational risk** — corrects a defect that would cause data loss,
   corrupt evidence, or break a live caller before cutover.

A change is **inadmissible** if it establishes new permanent ownership here:
a new capability, a new authority, a new durable schema, or new automation whose
natural home is one of the receiving owners.

## The load-bearing case

The four admissible reasons are deliberately broad, and reason 4 is the one that
will be stretched. The test is not "is this a good change?" — most inadmissible
changes are good changes. The test is **"where does this live after cutover?"**

If the answer is "an owner repo," build it there and let State Hub adapt to it.
If the answer is "nowhere, it disappears at archive," it is admissible here.
If the answer is "State Hub, indefinitely," it is inadmissible regardless of merit.

Worked example, from this program: `STATE-WP-0080` was drafted as a full
flavor-awareness implementation inside `statehub_register.py`. It was good work
and it fixed a real defect. It was still inadmissible — repository standards
land in `repo-manager` after cutover — so it was retargeted to a guard plus a
delegation, and the implementation moved to `RMGR-WP-0004`.

## Enforcement

**By review, not by new automation.** Building a freeze-checker inside State Hub
would be new permanent automation in the component being retired — the policy
would violate itself. The gate is applied where changes are already reviewed:

| Point | Gate |
| --- | --- |
| New workplan in `workplans/` | Goal statement names which of the four reasons applies, or the plan is retargeted to an owner repo |
| Task marked `progress` on a non-trivial change | Same question, answered in the task body |
| Cutover slice execution (`STATE-WP-0079-T04`) | Slices are admissible by construction — they are reasons 1–3 |
| Any new table, route, or MCP tool | Presumed inadmissible; requires an explicit note saying why it dies at archive |

The last row is the only hard stop. New durable surface is exactly what the
freeze exists to prevent, so it carries a presumption against, and the burden
sits with the change.

## What the freeze does not cover

- **Receiving repos.** `repo-manager`, `hub-core`, `activity-core`, `ops-hub`,
  and `fin-hub` are building the successor surfaces; they are unconstrained by
  this policy and should be where new capability lands.
- **Work records.** Workplans, ADRs, decision docs, and evidence files in this
  repo are the retirement program's own record. Writing them is reason 2 or 3.
- **`keep` items.** The 45 `keep`-dispositioned surfaces (`schema-history`,
  ops-bridge connectivity, and the rest) stay operational until the freeze
  window; maintaining them is reason 1.

## Interaction with the quality gates

Freeze admissibility is orthogonal to DoR/DoD (`docs/work-record-quality-gates.md`).
A workplan can be `DoR-Ok` and still `Freeze-Failed` — well-specified work in the
wrong repo is the exact failure this policy catches. Assess freeze first: it
decides *whether* the work belongs here, before DoR asks whether it is ready.
