# agent's compliance evidence export missed the retention window: how to recover

## TL;DR

The evidence export ran late and the source's retention had already aged out the data, leaving a gap. Backfill what survives from replicas and archives, document the gap honestly, and monitor export freshness so the next run cannot miss the window. Retention windows do not negotiate.

```text
compliance evidence export missed the retention window (gap in evidence)
```

## Steps

1. Measure the gap: which time range is missing from the evidence store.
   Expected: The gap is bounded.

2. Backfill from every surviving source: replicas, archives, provider exports.
   Expected: The gap shrinks to what is truly gone.

3. Document the unrecoverable portion honestly for the auditor; invented evidence is worse than a gap.
   Expected: The record is truthful.

4. Fix the export scheduling: run it well inside the retention window with freshness monitoring.
   Expected: Exports cannot miss the window.

5. Alert on export age: if the newest evidence is older than the threshold, page.
   Expected: Staleness is visible immediately.

## When to use

- evidence exports miss retention windows
- compliance gaps appear
- source retention is short

## When not to use

- the data is fully backfilled (then it is a scare, not a gap)
- retention was extended before the miss (check the actual window)
- the evidence was never required (confirm with the auditor)

## Tool compatibility

- any compliance evidence pipeline
- retention-windowed sources

## Variant phrasings

- "evidence export missed retention window"
- "compliance evidence gap recovery"
- "retention window missed export"

## Why it happens

Sources keep data for a fixed window, and evidence pipelines that run late lose the oldest data permanently. The export schedule and the retention window are a coupled system; when the schedule slips past the window, data is gone, not delayed. Freshness monitoring is the coupling made explicit.

## Edge cases

- backfilled evidence must be labeled as such; auditors distinguish
- the honesty of the gap report matters more than the gap
- retention windows differ per source; the tightest one sets the schedule

## Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_EERq2aG6iDlrTAh9FVTUVg