Update to Wolfi Package Archive Policy: Retention Window Reducing to 6 Months

[sil2100]

Planned Change Date: June 13, 2026

As communicated in a previous announcement, Chainguard has been archiving non-latest Wolfi package versions older than 12 months from public repositories on a monthly basis. We are now moving to the next phase of that plan.

Starting June 13, the retention window for non-latest package versions in public Wolfi APK repositories will be reduced from 12 months to 6 months. Removals will continue to occur monthly on the second Wednesday of each month.

---

What This Means

Chainguard will remove any non-latest package version that is more than 6 months old from Wolfi, unless it is a dependency for other packages in Wolfi, a dependency for Chainguard Container images, or has been pulled by a Chainguard customer through their virtual apk repository endpoint within the previous 90 days. The latest version of a package will also be removed if the package definition is no longer present in the wolfi-dev/os repository, unless it meets the exception conditions listed above.

If you pin specific package versions in your builds or container images, you should verify those versions are less than 6 months old by the June 13 deadline.

If you depend on older package versions, you should establish an internal mirror before the deadline.

---

Why We're Making This Change

Reducing from 12 to 6 months is the next step toward our goal of improving APKINDEX performance and keeping public repositories lean. The APKINDEX has grown from ~4,600 unique package versions at inception to over 344,000 - and trimming older, unused versions is essential to maintaining the performance of common package manager operations.

---

Actions to Take Before June 13

• If you pin package versions: confirm all pinned versions are less than 6 months old.
• If you require older package versions: set up an internal mirror before the deadline.
• If you use only the latest tags: no action is required.

If you have questions or concerns, please reply to this discussion.