Field notes
When to retire an analytics event
An event earns retirement when the product no longer fires the action, when a replacement event covers the same decision, or when no report has used it for two planning cycles.
Publish a deprecation window. Mark the event as deprecated in the catalogue, stop new uses, and remove it from instrumentation after the agreed date. Note which archived reports still reference it.
Do not merge old and new events under one name without recording the cutover date. Analysts need to know when definitions changed.
Ownership helps here. If nobody claims an event, it is a candidate for retirement after a short review with product.
Build retirement into your taxonomy reviews so the catalogue stays a working document rather than a museum.