Governance

Stale-After Date

A date recorded alongside a claim after which its supporting evidence is treated as expired until someone re-checks it.

OWNER — Knowledge Ops

LAST REVIEWED — 2026-09-02 07:11 UTC

What it is

A stale-after date is recorded alongside a claim to mark the point at which its supporting evidence should be treated as expired until someone re-checks it. It encodes how long the evidence is expected to hold, not how long the claim is expected to be used. An audit report has a fixed window, a headcount figure ages in weeks, and a published price may be stable for a year — the same sentence structure, three very different expiry horizons.

Why it matters

Recording expiry in a field rather than a calendar reminder is what lets it be checked by a machine and fail loudly. Regulated content systems have worked this way for years; Veeva's claims library tracks expiration on approved claims so that material built from them cannot quietly outlive its evidence. The important nuance is what the date means: it says our knowledge expired, not that the claim became false.