eol-process

# EOL Process

## Purpose

Run a product retirement end to end: decide whether to do it, align the people who can stop it,
build the operational plan, ready the teams who will face customers, announce it, and close it out
properly. Six phases with decision points between them.

The governing goal, and the sentence worth keeping in your head the whole way through: **lose the
product without losing the customer.** Most of what follows exists to protect the second half of
that sentence.

This is an orchestration skill. It doesn't replace the artifact skills — it tells you which one to
reach for, when, and what has to be true before you move on.

## Input

**Works best with:** The product being retired and where you currently are — considering it,
decided, mid-plan, or already announced and struggling.

**Also useful:** Scale (customers, revenue, contracts), whether a replacement exists, and who
already knows.

Anything supplied with the invocation itself — text after the skill name, a pasted context dump, or
an appended `ARGUMENTS:` line — counts as answers already given. Use it and skip whatever it
covers; don't re-ask.

**Arriving empty-handed? That works too.** The process opens by establishing what's being retired
and where you are in it, then routes you to the right phase. If you're mid-sunset and something is
going wrong, say so — the diagnostic in "Entering Mid-Stream" finds the skipped phase.

**Example invocations:**
- `Run the full EOL process for our legacy reporting module — decision made, nothing else started.`
- `We announced a sunset three weeks ago and Support is drowning. What did we skip?`

---

## Key Concepts

### The Six Phases

| # | Phase | Question it answers | Primary artifact |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | **Decide** | Should we retire this, and how big is this? | Readiness assessment + intensity level |
| 2 | **Align** | Who can stop this, and what do they know that we don't? | Stakeholder sequence |
| 3 | **Plan** | What has to happen, when, and who owns it? | Phase-gated checklist |
| 4 | **Prepare** | Are our people ready before our customers hear? | Internal enablement pack |
| 5 | **Announce** | What do customers hear, and when? | Customer EOL message |
| 6 | **Close** | Did we finish, and what did we learn? | Post-EOL review |

**Phase 6 is the one everyone skips.** It's also the phase that makes your next sunset cheaper.
Budget for it up front, because nobody volunteers for it afterward.

### This Is a Route, Not a Pipeline

Every skill in this suite stands alone. None requires another to have run first. This process is a
**recommended route through independent stops**, not a conveyor belt — which means:

- **You can enter at any phase.** Decision already made and defensible? Start at Phase 2.
- **You can skip phases** when the level justifies it. A Level 1 sunset often collapses 2 through 4
  into a single afternoon.
- **You can go backwards, and sometimes must.** Phase 2 routinely sends you back to Phase 1 — a
  Legal finding or a Sales commitment can invalidate the decision. That's the process working, not
  failing.
- **Nothing hands off a format.** Carrying context between phases means telling the next skill
  "Level 2" and pasting what you have. There's no schema to preserve.

The order earns its keep because each phase surfaces what the next one needs. Deviate deliberately,
not accidentally.

### Right-Size the Whole Process

**Not all EOLs play out the same.** The process compresses or expands with the sunset:

| | **Level 1 — Light** | **Level 2 — Standard** | **Level 3 — Heavy** |
|---|---|---|---|
| Typical scope | Feature, internal tool, API | Commercial product, active customers | Revenue-critical, hardware, regulated |
| Elapsed time | Days to weeks | 6-12 months | 12-24 months |
| Phase 2 stops | 3-4 | 7-8 | 10+ |
| Phase 3 gates | 2-3 phases, no gate criteria | 4-5 phases with gates | All 6 phases, gates with approvers |
| Phase 4 output | Support FAQ | + Sales points, objections, escalation | + Channel brief, training |
| Phase 5 message | Brief notice | Standard with phase table | Full, phased, with compliance |
| Phases 2-4 | Often collapse into one sitting | Distinct, sequential | Distinct, with their own workstreams |

**Level 2 is the default.** Set the level in Phase 1, and let it size everything downstream.
**Never default to Level 3** — process theater on a small sunset teaches everyone to ignore the
process on a big one.

### Entering Mid-Stream

Most people find this skill in the middle of a sunset, often a troubled one. Symptoms map to the
phase that got skipped:

| Symptom | Phase skipped | What to do now |
|---|---|---|
| "Legal just found a contract problem" | 2 (Align) | Stop. Return to Phase 1 — the decision may not survive |
| "Sales says they promised this forever" | 2 (Align) | Inventory field commitments before any further comms |
| "Support is drowning in tickets" | 4 (Prepare) | Ship the FAQ and escalation ladder today; backfill the rest |
| "Customers say they never heard" | 5 (Announce) | Re-announce with dates; the first notice didn't land |
| "Nobody knows who owns what" | 3 (Plan) | Build the checklist; unowned items are the failure |
| "We shut it off and things broke" | 3 (Plan) | Downstream readers were never inventoried |
| "We did it and learned nothing" | 6 (Close) | Run the review now — memory decays fast |

### Facilitation Source of Truth

Use [`workshop-facilitation`](../workshop-facilitation/SKILL.md) as the interaction protocol when
running any phase conversationally. Give the heads-up, take context dumps, offer numbered choices,
and let people bail to a specific phase.

### Anti-Patterns (what this is NOT)
- **Not a project plan.** It sequences decisions and artifacts, not tasks and resources.
- **Not mandatory in full.** Six phases at Level 1 is the ceremony failure this suite exists to
  prevent.
- **Not a substitute for the conversations.** Phase 2 is people talking, not a document.
- **Not one-directi