GitHub Actions artifact retention limit exceeding 90-day maximum cap

No documented configuration or API method exists to extend the 90‑day retention cap for actions/upload-artifact artifacts. The platform enforces this as a hard maximum; the retention-days input is accepted up to 90, but any value larger than 90 is silently capped to 90 and the artifact is purged after that window.

Confirmed facts (from platform behavior):

• The retention-days input for actions/upload-artifact can be set to any integer, but values above 90 produce no extended storage.
• The GitHub REST API actions/artifacts endpoints support listing, downloading, and deleting artifacts, but do not expose a parameter to modify the retention duration.
• Artifacts exceeding 90 days are automatically removed without warning, which may impact compliance or release‑tracking audits.

If you need to preserve build outputs beyond 90 days, the recommended approach is to manually download the artifacts after each workflow run and archive them to an external storage service (e.g., Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, or a private bucket) with your own lifecycle policy. Alternatively, store the artifacts in GitHub Packages or the Container Registry, which support independent retention settings.

To verify the cap in your environment, create a test workflow that uses actions/upload-artifact with retention-days: 120 and monitor the artifact’s disappearance after the 90‑day mark. If your repository belongs to a GitHub Enterprise Cloud organization, please confirm whether custom retention policies are in effect; this detail may change the recommendation.