generated: '2026-09-05'
method: searched
source: >-
  https://keepachangelog.com/ (version navigation),
  https://keepachangelog.com/en/2.0.0/,
  https://github.com/olivierlacan/keep-a-changelog/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md, and direct
  HTTP probes of every published version URL on 2026-09-05.
note: >-
  The subject of this lifecycle is a SPECIFICATION, not an API. There is no runtime to
  deprecate, no Sunset or Deprecation response header to send, and no SLA — those fields
  are n/a rather than absent. What the project does operate is a version-preservation
  policy for the specification text itself, which is unusually clean and is recorded here.

versioning:
  scheme: semver
  policy_url: https://keepachangelog.com/en/2.0.0/
  current_version: 2.0.0
  current_released: '2026-06-07'
  url_pattern: https://keepachangelog.com/{lang}/{version}/
  navigation: >-
    Every version page carries a version selector to the other published versions and a
    language selector across 28 translations.
  published_versions:
    - version: 2.0.0
      url: https://keepachangelog.com/en/2.0.0/
      status: current
      released: '2026-06-07'
      http_status: 200
    - version: 1.1.0
      url: https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.1.0/
      status: superseded
      released: '2019-02-15'
      http_status: 200
    - version: 1.0.0
      url: https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.0.0/
      status: superseded
      released: '2017-06-20'
      http_status: 200
    - version: 0.3.0
      url: https://keepachangelog.com/en/0.3.0/
      status: superseded
      released: '2015-12-03'
      http_status: 200
    - version: 0.0.1
      url: https://keepachangelog.com/en/0.0.1/
      status: not-published-as-a-page
      released: '2014-05-31'
      http_status: 404
      note: >-
        The 0.0.x line appears in CHANGELOG.md but has no version page; 0.3.0 is the
        oldest URL that resolves. Probed directly on 2026-09-05.

version_preservation:
  policy: superseded-versions-stay-live
  verified: probed
  detail: >-
    Every superseded specification version remains served at its own stable URL, and the
    2.0.0 release notes state the intent explicitly where the guidance changed —
    "Earlier versions keep the original." Probed 2026-09-05: 1.1.0, 1.0.0 and 0.3.0 all
    return 200. A project that pinned its changelog preamble to
    https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.0.0/ nine years ago still resolves today.
  known_breakage:
    - detail: >-
        2.0.0 restructured the page from a flat FAQ into integrated guidance, so some
        section ANCHORS that older links pointed at no longer resolve WITHIN the 2.0.0
        page. The versioned pages that contain those anchors are still served, so a link
        that named its version is unaffected; a link to a bare /en/ anchor is.
      source: https://keepachangelog.com/en/2.0.0/

breaking_change_policy:
  stated: true
  source: https://github.com/olivierlacan/keep-a-changelog/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md
  detail: >-
    Breaking changes are marked inline in the project's own changelog with a bold
    **Breaking:** prefix, and the 2.0.0 entry opens with a plain-language statement of
    blast radius — "It breaks the guidance, not the format ... so your existing changelog
    stays valid." Three entries carry the Breaking marker.
  migration_guidance: >-
    2.0.0 added guidance on "adopting a newer version of the format without rewriting
    history", which is the migration path from 1.x.

deprecation:
  policy_published: false
  sunset_header: na
  deprecation_header: na
  detail: >-
    No deprecation or sunset policy is published, and none is applicable — no version of
    the specification has ever been withdrawn. Deprecation exists inside the format (one
    of the six change types is "Deprecated") but that is vocabulary the format offers its
    users, not a policy the project applies to itself. No Deprecation pointer is wired
    into apis.yml.

status_page:
  published: false
  detail: >-
    No status page exists and none is expected: the site is static HTML built once and
    served from GitHub Pages (stated in the project's AGENTS.md), so its availability is
    GitHub Pages' availability. No StatusPage pointer is wired into apis.yml.

sla:
  published: false
  detail: MIT-licensed volunteer open source; no service-level commitment is offered.

support_channels:
  - type: IssueTracker
    url: https://github.com/olivierlacan/keep-a-changelog/issues
    status: 200
  - type: Discussions
    url: https://github.com/olivierlacan/keep-a-changelog/discussions
    status: 200

maintainership:
  model: single-maintainer-plus-contributors
  maintainer: Olivier Lacan
  source: https://github.com/olivierlacan/keep-a-changelog/blob/main/AGENTS.md
  detail: >-
    Self-described in AGENTS.md: "The project has one maintainer, myriad contributors,
    and an oversized impact on how software changes are communicated around the world."
    A bus-factor of one is the material lifecycle risk for a convention this widely
    depended on; the mitigation on record is that the specification text is MIT-licensed
    and fully mirrored in a public Git repository.
  last_repository_activity: '2026-09-04'