A project directory can make development look inevitable: a problem, a repository, a finished thing. Actual work has branches, reversals, and ideas that stop earning their place.
A concrete example: Profiles
The current Profiles README explicitly records deletion of the installation-marker selector, path-bound enrollment receipts, and compatibility wrapper. The host now supplies the requested identity and store mode explicitly; the removed fallback is not retained.
That is enough to describe the changed contract. It is not enough, by itself, to reconstruct every reason the earlier design was chosen or every step that led to its removal. A deeper retrospective needs the relevant decisions and commits.
Use the right status
Removed means removed. Superseded means a later approach took its place. Paused means we may return. Abandoned means we decided to stop. Unfinished does not tell us which of those happened.
Keep conclusions proportional to evidence
The public Companion repository also preserves a different desktop application approach. Its existence alone does not establish that all of it was abandoned or that every capability moved to Bridge. That lineage deserves a dedicated history review.
This site will keep a record of changed directions as the evidence becomes available. We will not fill the gaps with a cleaner story than the history supports.