Purpose

The clean-shutdown procedure for an agent that's been retired. Triggered by KPI failure, replacement, ROI below break-even, owner departure, or scope no longer relevant.

This is the gate that prevents zombie agents — the framework's most-cited failure pattern at maturity. Without a retirement procedure, credentials linger, audit logs grow forever, new agents accidentally inherit old scope, and users hit dead-end workflows with no replacement path.

• When you use it: When any retirement trigger fires (defined in Agent Card §13).
• Who fills it: CoE Lead drives. Platform team executes technical revocation. Department Champion informs the affected users.
• Time: 1–2 weeks calendar time (announce, transition, revoke, archive, close).
• Output: Signed checklist + registry status → Retired.

Worked example (AP Accountant invoice reconciliation, hypothetical 2027 retirement)

Retirement Checklist — finance-invoice-recon v1.0

Trigger: Replacement by NetSuite-native AI matching feature (superior accuracy + integrated) Decision date: 2027-07-15 Target retirement date: 2027-08-15 Owner of retirement: Morteza Moradi (CoE Lead) + Mike Chen (Finance Champion)

1. Trigger and rationale

2. Pre-retirement steps

3. Retirement-day procedure (2027-08-15)

4. Archive procedure

5. Registry update

6. Procurement check

7. User re-pathing

8. Lessons fed back to framework

• Retire when there's a better tool. Don't keep agents alive for political reasons. The native tool is more accurate AND cheaper. The Finance Champion proposed retirement himself.
• 15-month run, net positive ROI. Agent generated ~$5,310 in net value across its lifetime. Pilot-to-retire was a successful cycle.
• Vendor-embedded AI displacement is a normal retirement trigger. SaaS vendors increasingly ship native AI features. Plan for it — don't be surprised.
• Logged in framework.md changelog 2027-08-16: "Retirement triggers should explicitly include 'replacement by vendor-embedded AI'."

Sign-off

Status: Retired. All actions complete.

Blank template (copy below for your agent)

# Retirement Checklist — [Agent ID] v[X.X]

**Trigger:** [What triggered retirement]
**Decision date:** [YYYY-MM-DD]
**Target retirement date:** [YYYY-MM-DD]
**Owner of retirement:** [CoE Lead + Department Champion]

## 1. Trigger and rationale

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Trigger | [KPI failure / Replacement / ROI / Owner departure / Scope obsolete / Incident] |
| Decision authority | [Who decided] |
| Decision date | |
| Effective retirement date | |
| Rationale | |

## 2. Pre-retirement steps

| # | Action | Owner | Done? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Announce retirement to affected department | | |
| 2 | Brief Executive sponsor | | |
| 3 | Train users on replacement path (if any) | | |
| 4 | Update workflow documentation | | |
| 5 | Confirm no upstream / downstream dependencies | | |
| 6 | Parallel run (if applicable) | | |

## 3. Retirement-day procedure

| # | Action | Owner | Done? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Disable agent in orchestrator (do NOT delete) | Platform team | |
| 2 | Revoke agent identity in IdP (Disabled, not deleted) | Platform team | |
| 3 | Revoke credentials in secret manager (Disabled) | Platform team | |
| 4 | Verify no new executions for 1 hour | Builder | |
| 5 | Update kill switch / feature flag to permanently off | Builder | |
| 6 | Update on-call schedules to inactive | | |

## 4. Archive procedure

| # | Action | Owner | Done? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Export logs to cold storage per retention policy | Platform team | |
| 2 | Set retention lifecycle (≥ 6 months EU AI Act baseline; longer per sector regulation) | Platform team | |
| 3 | Move source repo to archive location | Builder | |
| 4 | Add RETIRED.md at top of archived repo | Builder | |
| 5 | Archive Agent Card + runbook + post-mortems + eval reports | Builder | |
| 6 | Update framework "agents retired" log | CoE Lead | |

## 5. Registry update

| Field | Post-retirement value |
|---|---|
| Status | **Retired** |
| Retirement date | |
| Retirement reason | |
| Final ROI total | |
| Final incident count | |
| Audit log archive location | |
| Source archive location | |
| Replacement (if any) | |

## 6. Procurement check

| # | Action | Owner | Done? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Notify Procurement | CoE Lead | |
| 2 | LLM spend impact | Procurement | |
| 3 | Observability seat impact | Procurement | |
| 4 | Other vendor commitments | Procurement | |

## 7. User re-pathing

| User | Re-pathed to | Training | Done? |
|---|---|---|---|
| | | | |

## 8. Lessons fed back to framework

- [Insight 1]
- [Insight 2]
- [Logged in framework.md changelog YYYY-MM-DD]

## Sign-off

| Role | Name | Date |
|---|---|---|
| CoE Lead | | |
| Department Champion | | |
| Platform team (revocation confirmed) | | |
| Procurement (informed) | | |
| Executive sponsor (informed) | | |

**Status:** Retired. All actions complete.

Usage notes

• Disable, don't delete. Identities, credentials, repos — all move to Disabled / Archived state, not Deleted. You may need them for an audit. Disable is reversible; Delete usually isn't.
• Logs are the long-tail obligation. Even after the agent stops running, logs may need to be retained for 6+ months (EU AI Act) or 7+ years (SOX). Plan archive cost.
• Re-path users before disabling. Section 7 is what prevents resentment. "I came in Monday and the tool was gone" is the wrong experience.
• Procurement check often surfaces hidden cost. Some LLM contracts have minimum commitments — retiring one agent may not save real money until renewal.
• Lessons matter. Section 8 is what makes the framework get better over time. A retirement without lessons is a missed opportunity.

Common pitfalls

Framework cross-references

• framework.md §11.2 (per-agent lifecycle — Retirement)
• framework.md §30 (failure patterns — no retirement = zombie agents)
• framework.md §17 (privileged identities — revocation)
• framework.md §22.1 EU AI Act Article 19 (log retention post-decommission)
• framework.md §22.2 NIST AI RMF MANAGE — decommissioning
• framework.md §22.3 ISO/IEC 42001 Clause 8 (lifecycle)
• workflows.md Step 16 (Retirement)
• workflows.html → In Action view → node M18 (Retire when triggered)