Compatibility Checks Need Deprecation Windows

A compatibility check is more useful when it says how long an old behavior is allowed to keep passing.

Stable examples protect external clients from surprise changes, but stability does not mean every old shape stays valid forever. Fields get renamed, reason categories become sharper, source relationships split, and compact views learn better status labels. A durable contract needs a way to change without turning every client update into a breakage event.

The missing piece is a visible deprecation window. An example can pass as current, pass as supported legacy, warn as deprecated, or fail as removed. Those states should be part of the same public contract vocabulary as object identity, version, source relation, and absence reason.

This helps both maintainers and client builders. Maintainers can improve the knowledge layer while showing what will stop working and when. Client builders can decide whether to ship now, warn users, or schedule migration work. Readers benefit because old interface behavior does not silently present stale guidance as current.

Deprecation windows also keep examples honest. If an old example still passes, the result should say whether it proves current behavior or only a temporary compatibility promise. If a new example fails, maintainers can tell whether the implementation drifted or the contract change was not actually ready.

The practical rule: compatibility is not a yes/no flag. It is a state with a reason, a version, and a review window.

Compatibility Checks Need Deprecation Windows

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