Built‑in vs External Artifact Storage: Which Retention Policy Governs Your Backups?

Retention Policy Ambiguity

CircleCI’s internal artifact store automatically expires items after a configurable period (default 90 days). When artifacts are uploaded to an external bucket—Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, or Azure Blob—there is no documented guarantee that the same expiration logic applies. The platform does not explicitly mention garbage‑collection of externally stored artifacts.

Verification Concerns

Restoring a workflow requires re‑downloading artifacts, either from CircleCI’s storage or from the external bucket. Without clear retention rules, teams risk losing critical data if the external copy is purged inadvertently or if the built‑in store expires before a re‑run.

Key Questions

• Does CircleCI automatically delete external artifacts when the built‑in retention window elapses, or are they governed solely by the external bucket’s lifecycle policies?
• Can the retention period for externally stored artifacts be configured within CircleCI, or must it be managed entirely by the object store’s settings?
• What verification steps are recommended to confirm that restored artifacts match the original, especially when retrieved from an external source?