085-Withdrawn proposals are deleted

Type: reference/types/adr.md · Status: accepted

Status: accepted Date: 2026-09-22 Amends: ADR 056 (adds a third exit from the frontier)

Context

ADR 056 gives a proposal two exits: adoption, when its choice ships as an ADR, and retirement, when a later decision forecloses it. Both end in the archive. A proposal can also stop mattering with no decision at all: the workflow it was designed for is removed, or the problem it addresses goes away, or its adoption trigger plainly never arrives. The 2026-09-22 review of the frontier found two such proposals. One had lost its only worked case when the workflow it targeted was retired without an ADR. The other said of itself that a different approach would likely dominate.

With no exit, such a proposal stays in the frontier, and listing the directory stops answering "what is still open". Forcing an exit through an ADR is also wrong: an ADR records an implemented decision, and withdrawing a proposal implements nothing.

The archive is justified by what an adopted or retired proposal retains: the dated measurements a live commitment rested on, which a decision audit may need and nobody can re-derive. A withdrawn proposal warranted no commitment, so nothing has a claim on its measurements. That is the same reason workshops are deleted rather than archived.

Decision

A live design proposal may be withdrawn when its problem no longer exists in the system, or its adoption trigger has lapsed, and no decision forecloses it. The operator decides; the withdrawing commit's body names which condition holds and the evidence for it. No ADR records a withdrawal.

A withdrawn proposal is deleted. Before deletion, anything still current is extracted as for any retirement: a transferable claim becomes a note, and a fact the system still depends on moves to the reference doc that owns it. Inbound links are retargeted or removed, and the published path redirects to the nearest page that carries the proposal's subject. Git keeps the text.

The design-proposal type spec states the withdrawn exit beside the archived state, and retire an artifact reads it to choose the delete destination.

Considered alternatives

Require a retiring ADR for every lapsed proposal. Keeps a single rule: every exit has a decision record. Rejected because an ADR records an implemented decision, and a withdrawal implements nothing. The commit body already carries change narrative under ADR 074.

Archive withdrawn proposals. Keeps the text for clones without history. Rejected because the archive's warrant is evidence behind a live commitment, and a withdrawn proposal has none. Archiving it would grow the archive with designs that no audit needs.

Keep lapsed proposals in the frontier. No operation needed. Rejected because the frontier's value is that every file in it is open, and each lapsed file taxes every sweep of the directory.

Mark lapsed proposals in place. A banner or status field. Rejected for the reason ADR 056 rejected in-place archiving: the file stays in every default listing, and a lifecycle field nothing validates is a cache that goes stale.

Free choices left open. No staleness signal routes a proposal to withdrawal. A refresh of its current state is where a lapsed trigger is usually noticed.

Consequences

The frontier can shrink without a decision record, so its listing stays accurate. The cost is that a withdrawn proposal is visible only in git history, and a shallow clone cannot see it. That is acceptable because nothing live rests on it.

Withdrawal is the operator's judgment, so a proposal can be withdrawn wrongly. Recovery is a new proposal, written from git history if needed.

Operativity path. The design-proposal type spec states the withdrawn exit and names the procedure. retire-artifact reads the type spec at its first step to choose the destination, and the agent running it follows its extraction and inbound-link steps with procedural force. The refresh procedure routes a lapsed trigger to the operator. Nothing enforces that a deletion under proposals/ was a withdrawal rather than an unrecorded retirement; the commit body is the only record.

Relevant Notes: