Retained versions
Retained versions stay pullable from this catalog's own registry, with their receipts unchanged. Packages are republished here at exact digests. When an upstream's terms or availability change, the catalog records the measured fact instead of removing the entry. Where a reviewed successor exists, the component's page and catalog row link it.
The retention is deliberate rather than a failure to update: a retained entry stays byte-for-byte reproducible while upstream moves, and refreshing the catalog creates a new entry beside the old one instead of overwriting it. The upstream drift record is what this discipline buys: when a publisher republishes different bytes under the same version string, this catalog can say so, with both digests.
The public changes.json file computes the current retained-version count, the oldest registry receipt, and the number of version strings whose upstream bytes were replaced. Those numbers come from package receipts and drift records. They are not maintained by hand.
A chart enters the catalog only after its chart license and the source of that license information are recorded. Normal refreshes add entries and do not rewrite old packages. If a legal or factual correction is required, the package must be marked and the reason recorded. A correction must never look like an ordinary refresh.
The matrix taxonomy
The master matrix keeps one row per chart, version, and base. Layer marks the path from the source chart, through bases and target inputs, to derived variants. Rows carry lane dispositions rather than one status, because a lane that has not run is different from a lane that failed, and both are different from a lane that passed on another version.
What a passing verifier means
A breaking chart should become a repeatable test, a named limit, or a required setup step. It must not disappear into prose.
A passing verifier means committed evidence is self-consistent. It does not replace fresh live evidence for a new target. You still need to test on your own cluster before production.