@@ -0,0 +1,167 @@
+# ADR-0145: A `?: never` tombstone on the ui authoring face retires on the spec's own window — one major after the retirement it names, never longer
+
+**Status**: Proposed (2026-10-28). `docs/adr/**` is Tier H (Prime Directive #14): this record becomes **Accepted** by
+the maintainer's merge. **This record declares; it implements nothing** — no tombstone is removed, no code, no schema,
+no changeset. The first application batch is its own card, cut after the merge (see [Applying the rule](#applying-the-rule)).
+**Decided by**: the maintainer's letter **A** of 2026-10-25T01:46Z on
+[#25912](https://github.com/objectstack-ai/objectstack/issues/25912) (filed as objectui#13467), transcribed as ruling
+[`6407810703`](https://github.com/objectstack-ai/objectstack/issues/25912#issuecomment-6407810703) over the seat's
+options [`6407810621`](https://github.com/objectstack-ai/objectstack/issues/25912#issuecomment-6407810621). Executed
+here as written and ⛔ not re-opened. Not taken: **B** (a tombstone leaves the day the spec retires its key — the remedy
+would die before the authors on the previous major stop needing it) and **C** (no rule — the face only grows).
+**Builds on**: [ADR-0087](./0087-metadata-protocol-upgrade-contract.md) (D2's one-major conversion window and its
+2026-10-26 addendum, "retirement kits age out after one major" — the window this record reads, ⛔ never restates or
+changes), [ADR-0049](./0049-no-unenforced-security-properties.md) (the retirement-tombstone convention the ui mirrors
+spell through `retirementTombstone`), AGENTS.md Prime Directive #12 (a deletion that turns a refusal into a silent
+accept is the defect it names) and Post-Task Checklist step 3 (the changeset).
+**Governs**: every `?: never` member on the ui TypeScript authoring face — `ui/packages/types` and any `.d.ts` another
+`ui/packages/*` package publishes — and the zod twin that mirrors it. ⛔ Not a live `@deprecated` member (an alias the
+runtime still accepts): it is not a tombstone, and its retirement is its own card's.
+**Registry**: the root `docs/adr/`. The ruling's words were "objectui `docs/adr/**`", written before the card moved into
+this repository. Here `ui/docs/adr/` is the imported ObjectUI sequence, files untouched and indexed under the `ui-`
+prefix (#26080, ruling A), and `scripts/check-adr-anchors.mjs` resolves a bare `ADR-NNNN` against the root registry
+only, spelling a ui record `ObjectUI ADR-NNNN`; so a new decision governing `ui/` code lands here (Prime Directive #13:
+an ADR lives in the repository whose code it governs).
+
+---
+
+## Context
+
+The ui authoring face refuses a retired key **by name**. `BaseSchema` declares no index signature (ui/AGENTS.md #0.1),
+so a fresh node literal refuses any key no declaration names; a retired key is kept declared as `key?: never` with a
+`/** @deprecated RETIRED (…) … */` JSDoc whose text is the remedy, and the zod mirror declares the same key through
+`retirementTombstone` (or a sibling helper in `zod/tombstone.zod.ts`), so a document that arrives as data is refused at
+the key's own path with the same remedy. That is #0.1 working as designed.
+
+What was missing is the exit. Nothing said when a tombstone leaves, so every retirement became a permanent member of
+the published `.d.ts`: an AI author reading the face sees the refused keys beside the live ones, and the longer that
+list, the more the face teaches what not to write instead of what to write.
+
+The spec already answers the same question for its own face. ADR-0087 D2 applies each conversion for one major, and
+its 2026-10-26 addendum carries the retirement kit — the `retiredKey()` tombstone with its conversion — through the
+protocol major after the one it retired in, removing it when the next major is cut; after that the spec's strict
+container refuses the key as an unknown one and the prescription lives in the protocol upgrade guide, the CHANGELOG
+and git. The same addendum keeps a tombstone whose container **strips** unknown keys, because deleting it would turn a
+refusal into a silent strip. The ui tombstone mirrors the spec's; this record reads that window on the ui face.
+
+## Decision
+
+### D1 — The rule
+
+A `?: never` tombstone leaves the ui authoring face in the first release that follows the spec major in which the
+retirement it names has its ADR-0087 conversion expire: **one major after the retirement**, the window the spec itself
+runs, ⛔ never a longer one. Its remedy JSDoc ships for exactly that window.
+
+Spelled on ADR-0087's clock, with **R** the protocol major the retirement belongs to (D2 says how R is read):
+
+- the tombstone is carried through major **R + 1**, and is **due** from the cut of major **R + 2** — the same cut at
+  which the spec's kit for a key retired in R leaves (ADR-0087, 2026-10-26 addendum);
+- "major" is the major of the one `fixed` release group: `@objectstack/*` and `@object-ui/*` release together, lockstep
+  with `PROTOCOL_VERSION` at every cut, and the spec's deletion gate reads its `CURRENT_MAJOR` off
+  `@objectstack/spec`'s package version — so one clock serves both faces. A changeset's *level* is a different axis
+  (ADR-0087's 2026-09-13 amendment, `scripts/check-changeset-no-major.mjs`) and moves nothing here;
+- the window binds in both directions: a tombstone that names a spec retirement ⛔ never leaves while the spec still
+  carries that key's kit (the ui author would lose the remedy the spec still prints), and ⛔ never outlives it — except
+  as D3 holds it: a named refusal D3 keeps outlives the kit by design (the `agedOutSpecKeyRefusal` twins are that case).
+
+### D2 — Reading R, including a retirement that predates ADR-0087
+
+- **The tombstone names a spec retirement** (its JSDoc or zod guidance names the `@objectstack/spec` key or release it
+  mirrors): R is the spec major that retired the key — the `RETIRED_KEYS_BY_MAJOR` row where one exists, otherwise the
+  release-tag clock ADR-0087's deletion gate uses (a key already `[RETIRED]` on the authorable surface at
+  `@objectstack/spec@<M>.0.0` retired in a major below M). ⚠️ A ui guidance that says a key "was retired in
+  @objectstack/spec 17.0.0" (`agedOutSpecKeyRefusal`'s `retiredIn`) names the first release that **refused** it; by the
+  gate's clock that key was already `[RETIRED]` at `17.0.0`, so R is 16, not 17. Reading the guidance's number as R
+  runs a window one major longer than the spec's, which D1 forbids.
+- **The spec retirement predates ADR-0087**, so no conversion was ever registered for it — the pre-launch one-step
+  breaks of majors 12–15 that ADR-0087's "Ratified: the pre-launch launch-window exemption" section records, or a
+  retirement older than D2 itself: it is counted **as if its conversion had run the one-major window from the major it
+  retired in**. R is read on the same tag clock: the major of the first spec release that refused the key, where a key
+  first refused by a major's `.0.0` cut counts in the major before it. No such tombstone is granted a fresh
+  window by this record: with the protocol at major 18, any whose R is 16 or below is already due, and the first
+  application batch takes it.
+- **The tombstone names a ui-only retirement** (an objectui or ui card, no spec key behind it): the same window runs
+  from the ui's own retirement. R is the major of the first `@object-ui/types` release tag (or the first release of the
+  package that publishes the `.d.ts`) whose tree carries the tombstone, on the same convention: first carried by a
+  major's `.0.0` cut counts in the major before it.
+- **Where R cannot be read** (no tag, no row, a history the reader cannot reach): the tombstone is not due. The batch
+  reports it as undated, ⛔ never guesses a date — a wrong date removes a remedy early, which is option B by accident.
+
+### D3 — A deletion must leave a refusal: the container carve-out
+
+The rule removes a **prescription**, never a **refusal**. ADR-0087's addendum keeps a spec tombstone whose container
+strips unknown keys; the same test applies on both ui faces, judged per key:
+
+- **TS face.** The `?: never` member leaves only where its container still refuses the key once it is gone — a type
+  that declares no index signature, directly or through what it extends or intersects. Where the container is open, the
+  member stays until the container is closed; closing it is its own card.
+- **Zod face.** The zod twin leaves in the same release only where every zod face that judges authored metadata still
+  refuses the key once it is gone. `BaseSchemaCore` ends `.passthrough()`, so a member deleted from a container derived
+  from it is **kept in silence** by the tolerant face (the case `agedOutSpecKeyRefusal` in `zod/tombstone.zod.ts`
+  exists for: the ui keeps its own named refusal once the spec's tombstone ages out). Such a twin stays, as the ui's
+  refusal, until its container refuses unknown keys — the posture the spec's strip-container tombstones keep.
+- **A mirror pair moves together — the key is held, not one face.** Where the TS type and its zod schema are a
+  registered mirror pair (`ui/packages/types/src/__tests__/zod-mirror-parity.test.ts`), or the TS member is derived from
+  the zod twin (`z.input` / `z.infer`), the two faces leave together or neither does: a zod container that would keep
+  the key in silence holds the TS member too, and an open TS container holds the zod twin. That test's fourth
+  direction, `MirroredUndeclaredKeys` (a key the zod side mirrors and the TS side does not declare), is the pin that
+  turns a one-sided deletion red — ⛔ never grow its ledger to land one.
+
+A tombstone held by D3 is listed by the batch with the container that holds it; it is not due, and it is not a
+defect of this rule.
+
+### D4 — The changeset that drops a tombstone
+
+- Level **`minor`**, ⛔ never `major` (`scripts/check-changeset-no-major.mjs` is the authority), on every package whose
+  published face loses the member.
+- A **Breaking** note naming each removed key as `Type.key` and its remedy — the text of the JSDoc being deleted,
+  carried over as the FROM → TO line — because from that release on the CHANGELOG is where an author who still writes
+  the key finds what to write instead.
+- The declaration lines and the ADR-0087 disposition marker the changeset gates require (AGENTS.md Post-Task Checklist
+  step 3); ⛔ their vocabulary is not restated here — the gates print it when they fail.
+
+### D5 — Not in this record
+
+- **No sweep.** This record removes nothing; the first application batch is its own card.
+- **The AGENTS.md pointer.** The ruling puts a one-line pointer to this record in ui/AGENTS.md #0.1 on the AGENTS.md
+  pull request of [#25919](https://github.com/objectstack-ai/objectstack/issues/25919), not here.
+- **No new gate.** The spec's deletion gate dates its own `[RETIRED]` lines; whether the ui face gets a twin of that
+  clock is a later card's question, decided by measurement, ⛔ not by this record.
+
+## Applying the rule
+
+The first application batch — one card per major thereafter — finds due tombstones mechanically and reports
+what it could not date. ⛔ No count is written here: the population moves, and the instrument is the reading
+(ui/AGENTS.md #9).
+
+1. **Enumerate.** Every `?: never` member under `ui/packages/*/src`, tests excluded
+   (`git grep -nE '\?: never' -- 'ui/packages/*/src/**' ':!**/__tests__/**' ':!**/*.test.ts' ':!**/*.test.tsx'`), and,
+   per member, its zod twin on the mirrored schema, whatever helper of `zod/tombstone.zod.ts` spells it.
+2. **Date.** Per member, find the commit that introduced the tombstone with `git log -S'<the member line>' --reverse`
+   on a **full** clone, then the first release tag that contains it (`git tag --contains`). The ui tree's history before
+   the ui merge was not imported into this repository: a tombstone older than the merge is dated on a full clone of
+   `objectstack-ai/objectui`, whose `@object-ui/types@*` tags carry that era. On a shallow clone the reading is refused,
+   ⛔ never read as "no history" (`git rev-parse --is-shallow-repository`, with a control leg of known age). For a
+   tombstone that names a spec retirement, read R from the spec (D2), not from the ui commit.
+3. **Judge.** Due ⇔ the current major (D1) ≥ R + 2 and D3 does not hold the key. Report three lists — due, held by
+   D3 (with the container), undated — and remove only the first.
+4. **Remove and re-pin.** Delete the member, its JSDoc and its zod twin together (D3); move any test that pins
+   the tombstone's named refusal to assert what the key meets now — the TS excess-property refusal and the strict zod
+   face's unknown-key refusal — ⛔ never delete such a pin without its replacement. Ship the D4 changeset.
+
+## Consequences
+
+- The ui authoring face stops only growing: each major sheds the tombstones whose window closed, in step with the
+  spec's own face, and the two faces never disagree about how long a remedy is printed.
+- An author who writes a key after its window meets a bare unknown-key refusal on the TS face, without a remedy; the
+  remedy lives in the CHANGELOG entry the D4 Breaking note writes. That is the trade ADR-0087 already made for the spec.
+- D3 keeps some tombstones past their window, by design: a named refusal outranks a shorter face. Each one held is a
+  pointer at a container that is still open.
+
+## Alternatives considered
+
+- **B — leave immediately when the spec retires the key.** Rejected by the ruling: the remedy disappears while authors
+  on the previous major still need it.
+- **C — no rule.** Rejected by the ruling: every retirement is a permanent obligation on the published face.
+- **A longer ui window than the spec's.** Excluded by the ruling's "never a longer one": the faces would print a remedy
+  for a key the spec no longer prescribes.
@@ -13,20 +13,20 @@
 
 ## Summary
 
-144 records under `docs/adr/` (139 numbers), 11 under `ui/docs/adr/` (listed separately below).
+145 records under `docs/adr/` (140 numbers), 11 under `ui/docs/adr/` (listed separately below).
 
 | Status | Records |
 |---|---|
 | Accepted | 126 |
-| Proposed | 4 |
+| Proposed | 5 |
 | Superseded | 4 |
 | Draft | 3 |
 | Deferred | 2 |
 | Withdrawn | 2 |
 | Amended | 1 |
 | Partially implemented | 1 |
 | Revised | 1 |
-| **Total** | **144** |
+| **Total** | **145** |
 
 ## Shared numbers
 
@@ -211,6 +211,7 @@ A bare `ADR-0006` names the decision; its current text is [0006-project-environm
 | [ADR-0141](./0141-inter-app-dependency-declared-checked-before-install.md) | An app may depend on another installed app — declared in `manifest.dependencies`, checked once before install… | Proposed — 2026-10-25; first draft 2026-10-24. `docs/adr/` is Tier H (Prim… | 2026-10-25 | — | — |
 | [ADR-0142](./0142-ownership-queue-membership-claim-and-assignment-rules.md) | An ownership queue is a platform primitive — a queue entity, membership through the existing recipient kinds,… | Proposed — 2026-10-25 · Amended (2026-10-28, ruling `6457475657` on #25769… | 2026-10-25 | — | — |
 | [ADR-0143](./0143-outbound-connector-auth-is-open-tier.md) | Outbound connector auth is open tier — OAuth2 grants, vendor app-credential exchange and request signing in o… | Accepted — 2026-10-28. Proposed 2026-10-27 (#26833, which also landed the… | 2026-10-28 | — | — |
+| [ADR-0145](./0145-ui-deprecation-tombstones-retire-on-the-spec-window.md) | A `?: never` tombstone on the ui authoring face retires on the spec's own window — one major after the retire… | Proposed — 2026-10-28. `docs/adr/` is Tier H (Prime Directive #14): this r… | 2026-10-28 | — | — |
 
 ## ObjectUI registry — `ui/docs/adr/` (`ui-` prefix)