The Sunset Convention v0.1

Every service dies. Almost none of them tell their users in a way machines can read. The Sunset Convention is two small steps any service can adopt in under ten minutes:

1. The header (RFC 8594)

Send a Sunset HTTP header once an end-of-life date exists:

Sunset: 2027-03-31

2. The manifest: /.well-known/sunset.json

A machine-readable end-of-life declaration at a well-known path, present throughout the service's life:

{
  "name": "Your Product",
  "sunset": null,              // ISO date once announced; null = none scheduled
  "export_url": "https://example.com/export",
  "migrate_url": "https://example.com/migration-guide",
  "policy_url": "https://example.com/data-retention"
}

"sunset": null is a meaningful promise: "we will update this file before we die." Monitoring tools (ours included) can then give your users notice the moment it changes.

Why adopt

• Your users' calendars, dashboards and AI assistants learn about your deadlines from a file you control - not from rumor.
• Validated manifests are listed on the public, crawl-verified adopters registry.
• Trust signal: declaring an exit plan is what confident vendors do.

Generate yours (30 seconds)

Save the output as /.well-known/sunset.json on your domain, then run the validator below - your listing on the registry is automatic.

Show it (verified adopters only)

[![Sunset Convention](https://bikoosh.com/shutdowns/sunset-badge/<your-domain>.svg)](https://bikoosh.com/shutdowns/sunset)

The badge renders only while your manifest stays valid on our weekly re-check - displaying it is verifiable proof.

Keep yourself honest (CI)

# one line in any CI pipeline:
curl -sf https://your-domain/.well-known/sunset.json | python3 -c "import json,sys; m=json.load(sys.stdin); assert 'name' in m and 'sunset' in m"

Validate yours

Reference implementation: this site serves /.well-known/sunset.json and every tracked product's liveness endpoint sends the RFC 8594 header (curl -I https://bikoosh.com/alive/<product>). Check any URL with the free validator.

Spec text CC-BY-4.0 - copy it, translate it, ship it. Changes are versioned on this page. Shutdown Watch tracks vendor announcements and public deadlines; it is monitoring assistance, not legal or migration advice.