Removing things safely.
WHAT TO ESTABLISH FIRST
Who is actually using it.
HOW
Logging by endpoint and by caller.
WHY THAT MATTERS
You cannot notify people you cannot identify.
WHAT TO DO BEFORE ANNOUNCING
Confirm an alternative exists and works.
WHAT NOTICE TO GIVE
Far more than feels necessary.
WHY
Callers have their own release cycles, approvals and priorities.
WHAT THE SEQUENCE SHOULD BE
Announce, with a date Mark responses as deprecated in a header Contact heavy users directly Reduce availability briefly, as a rehearsal Retire
WHAT A REHEARSAL OUTAGE ACHIEVES
It surfaces users who ignored every notice, while recovery is trivial.
WHAT TO DO ABOUT THOSE USERS
Contact them individually.
WHAT TO MONITOR THROUGHOUT
Remaining traffic.
WHAT TO NEVER DO
Retire something with traffic still on it, without warning those callers.
WHAT TO DOCUMENT
The date, the reason and the alternative.
WHAT TO KEEP AFTERWARDS
A response explaining that it was retired, rather than a bare not-found.
WHY
It tells whoever eventually notices what happened.
WHAT TO LEARN FROM EACH RETIREMENT
How long it actually took.
