Context Lifecycle Diagnostics

Renma checks lifecycle metadata so temporarily suspended assets remain auditable and deprecated context assets do not point at stale replacements.

These diagnostics are deterministic catalog diagnostics. They do not choose replacement context at runtime, infer migration intent, create scan finding IDs, or rewrite metadata.

Temporary suspension

suspended is an intentionally temporary inactive lifecycle state. Renma keeps the asset in inventory and evidence projections, but does not treat it as usable for active dependency, composition, publication, routing, reachability, or cycle analysis. Omitted status retains the established use-eligible behavior; experimental and stable are declared active, while suspended, deprecated, and archived are inactive.

A canonical Skill declares suspension with flat string values:

metadata:
  renma.status: suspended
  renma.status-reason: Temporarily disabled while issue QE-1234 is corrected.
  renma.status-changed-at: "2026-08-03"

A non-Skill asset uses the corresponding top-level keys:

status: suspended
status_reason: Temporarily disabled while issue QE-1234 is corrected.
status_changed_at: 2026-08-03

Both evidence fields are required for suspension. The reason must be non-blank, and the changed date must be a real YYYY-MM-DD calendar date. An invalid date is an error while suspended and a warning for any other status. The changed date records the latest reviewed lifecycle transition; it is not last_reviewed_at, which records a freshness review.

Restoration is an explicit reviewed metadata change. For example:

metadata:
  renma.status: stable
  renma.status-reason: Restored after QE-1234 was corrected and verified.
  renma.status-changed-at: "2026-08-06"

Renma does not expire, restore, delete, clone, or reactivate an asset automatically. Git history and the pull request containing each reviewed transition provide the full audit trail; Renma exposes only the current normalized declaration.

Suspended dependency policy

For one exact, uniquely resolved direct declaration from an active source:

• requires_context, requires_lens, and Context Lens applies_to targeting a suspended asset are errors;
• optional_context and optional_lens targeting a suspended asset are warnings; and
• inactive sources do not receive cascading suspension dependency diagnostics.

Ambiguous or unresolved targets retain their existing diagnostics; Renma does not select one candidate merely to emit a suspension diagnostic. Required composition becomes incomplete when its required closure contains a suspended asset. Optional membership remains visible and reviewable without being silently promoted to required.

An isolated suspended asset is valid inventory. Suspension alone does not create an orphan warning or a readiness blocker when no active source requires it. Other unrelated diagnostics remain visible.

Scope

These diagnostics apply to governed shared context assets: context assets with a context.* id, owner metadata, and usage-boundary metadata (when_to_use and when_not_to_use). Lightweight fixtures or unmanaged context-like files are ignored.

Deprecated context without replacement

Renma warns when a deprecated shared context asset has no superseded_by metadata:

Deprecated shared context asset is missing superseded_by metadata.

Prefer linking deprecated context to the current replacement:

status: deprecated
superseded_by:
  - context.testing.boundary-value-analysis

If there is intentionally no replacement, keep that rationale in the Markdown body and consider whether archived is more appropriate than deprecated.

Invalid superseded_by targets

Renma warns when superseded_by points at itself, points at a missing catalog entry, or points at another inactive asset.

Example messages:

Shared context asset superseded_by references itself: "context.testing.old-boundary-analysis".
Shared context asset superseded_by target "context.testing.missing" does not match a catalog entry.
Shared context asset superseded_by target "context.testing.old-target" resolves to an inactive asset with status "deprecated".

superseded_by should point at a stable or experimental catalog asset that can serve as the reviewed replacement.

Supersession cycles

Renma warns when deprecated context assets form a replacement cycle:

Shared context asset superseded_by chain forms a cycle involving "context.testing.old-a".

Break the cycle by pointing each deprecated asset at the actual current replacement, or by archiving assets that have no replacement.

Relationship to context lens

These checks are useful before adding purpose-oriented lens assets. A lens should not have to reason through stale replacement chains or cycles when it depends on base context.