The vocabulary this register reads notices in

A term page defines one word used in lifecycle notices or in this register, says what it commits a vendor to, and says what it is routinely mistaken for. As of 2026-09-12.

Fig. 1 No vendor in this register publishes a glossary, so none of these pages can offer a definition anybody has agreed to.

Retirement vocabulary is borrowed from software and hardware, where the words have settled meanings, and then applied to models where they do not. A reader who assumes the settled meaning will over-read half of these words and under-read the rest.

None of these pages carries a vendor statement. They exist so the statements on the entry pages can be read correctly, and every one of them points back at the column or the calendar where the real wording lives.

Where a word has no agreed meaning in this field, that is the definition given. Writing a confident one would be inventing a standard nobody published, which is the failure this whole register is arranged to avoid.

1The terms

Deprecated — Borrowed from software, where it means a feature still works and should not be built on.
Retirement date — The day access to a model ends.
Shutdown — The moment a model no longer responds.
End-of-life — Borrowed from hardware, where it means a stated date after which a thing does not run.
Legacy period — A named window during which a model stays available to existing customers but cannot be adopted by new ones.
Sunset — The retirement word most often attached to an actual calendar entry.
Advance notice — The warning a vendor commits to give before a model goes.
General availability — The stage at which a model is considered ready for production use.
Preview model — A model offered before general availability.
Non-extendable date — A published statement that a retirement date cannot be pushed back.
Model version — The specific release of a model line.
Version alias — A convenience name resolving to whatever version a vendor currently recommends.
Version pinning — Naming an exact version so the same weights answer every call.
Model identifier — The exact name a request uses.
Model card — A page describing one model.
Changelog — A dated record of changes to a product or interface.
Successor model — The model a retirement notice says to move to.
Silent update — A model updated in place, keeping its name while its behaviour moves.
Endpoint — The address a request is sent to.
Published weights — Model files distributed for download under a stated licence.
Inference — Running a model to produce output.
410 Gone — The response one platform states its retired models return.
Region availability — Whether a model remains reachable somewhere else.
Inactivity clause — A published sentence allowing access to end after a period of disuse.
Active deployment — A configured use of a specific model version.
Export window — A period for retrieving material before a product closes.
House model — A model the seller made itself.
Licensed model — A model on a seller's menu that somebody else makes.
Aggregator — A product selling access to models from several makers.
Credit conversion — A table saying how far a credit goes on each model.
Output unit — A second of footage, a finished clip, or a credit.
Tier gating — Naming models per plan tier, so access follows the subscription.
Default engine — Whatever a product generates with when nobody chooses.
Announced date — A date published by the company that makes or serves the model.
Blank cell — An empty value in this register means a vendor has not published anything on that point.
Earliest possible date — Wording one maker uses for its shutdown dates.
Reading date — The day this register read a page.
Reproducibility — Whether output generated on a version can still be produced later.

A term earns a page when it appears in a notice this register has read, or in a column heading readers have to interpret.

Other notices: Apps, Models, Fields, Side by side, Questions, Learn, Data. Where each line comes from is set out on the sourcing page.