diff --git a/.abcd/work/DECISIONS.md b/.abcd/work/DECISIONS.md
index 96d84aab..548e0834 100644
--- a/.abcd/work/DECISIONS.md
+++ b/.abcd/work/DECISIONS.md
@@ -986,3 +986,9 @@ parallel-agent merge contention bites.
   or issue threads dated before 2026-08-06 refers to the pre-rewrite
   history and no longer resolves from a current checkout; treat those
   citations as historical, keyed to the old epoch.
+- 2026-08-07 — release retention: the newest-per-line prune (brief § 3, itd-70)
+  is computed and previewable but has never run, so v0.4.0 and v0.4.1 survive
+  against the policy. They stay: pruning them by hand would spend the only live
+  fixture itd-70 has to prove itself against, and the first real prune should be
+  the shipped mechanism's. The doc-currency half — prose that describes the
+  policy as operating — is captured as iss-194.
diff --git a/.abcd/work/issues/open/iss-194-release-retention-is-documented-in-the-present-tense-but-has.md b/.abcd/work/issues/open/iss-194-release-retention-is-documented-in-the-present-tense-but-has.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..0cc645b6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.abcd/work/issues/open/iss-194-release-retention-is-documented-in-the-present-tense-but-has.md
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+---
+schema_version: 1
+id: "iss-194"
+slug: "release-retention-is-documented-in-the-present-tense-but-has"
+severity: "minor"
+category: "observation"
+source: "user-observation"
+found_during: "manual-capture"
+---
+
+Release retention is documented in the present tense but has never run: the newest-per-line policy in brief/04-surfaces/04-launch.md:134 and the release glossary entry describe pruning as operating behaviour, and internal/core/launch/retention.go:30 implements it exactly, but nothing executes it. internal/core/launch/ship.go:41 stops before the network ('the real GitHub Release + SLSA + tag push + retention prune are a later phase'), and .github/workflows/release.yml — which publishes every release this project has actually cut — carries no retention step at all. The brief's own phase note schedules the prune as itd-70, unshipped. Same implemented-but-never-run class as iss-183, and found the same way: by reading the record against the live surface. Live evidence, 2026-08-07: six releases exist; the real preview keeps v0.1.0, v0.2.0, v0.3.0, v0.4.2 and would prune v0.4.0 and v0.4.1, so the repository's own release list contradicts the prose. Scope here is the doc-currency half only — state that the policy is computed and previewable but not yet enforced, on the channel-truthful pattern iss-183 established; wiring the prune is itd-70 and is not assumed by this item. Maintainer disposition (2026-08-07): v0.4.0 and v0.4.1 are deliberately left in place rather than pruned by hand, so itd-70 has a live fixture to exercise on arrival — the first real prune should be the shipped mechanism's, not a manual one. Related observation, possibly separable: internal/core/launch/dryrun.go:126 discards the error from GitExistingTags, so a shallow or tagless checkout yields an empty existing set and the retention preview reports nothing to prune — indistinguishable from a genuine nothing-to-prune. Reproduced in a shallow clone during this investigation before tags were fetched.
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