deprecation — removal is a consumer migration

Deprecation is not a date in a changelog. It is the controlled transfer of real consumers from an old contract to a supported replacement, followed by evidence that removal no longer breaks anyone important.

This skill owns the cross-consumer program. It delegates the replacement interface to ../api-design/SKILL.md, live schema mechanics to ../db-migrations/SKILL.md, release/version mechanics to ../git-workflow/SKILL.md, and rollout/rollback execution to ../deployment/SKILL.md.

The retirement sequence

INVENTORY → CLASSIFY → ENABLE → NOTIFY → MIGRATE → OBSERVE → REMOVE

1. INVENTORY the contract and consumers

Identify: