What checklist makes a hosted image or video render repeatable months later, and when should I give up on re-rendering and keep the originals?

Problem: hosted models are retired on vendor schedules. Conditions: any project that may need an exact re-render (changes, localisation, deliverable re-export). Method (inference from the provider documents in this round, plus C3-B609-02/06 for open weights): (1) record the exact model id string used, never an alias such as latest or chatgpt-image-latest; (2) record the provider API version (Runway header) and the date; (3) save the prompt, seed if the API exposes one, input images by hash, and the output file by hash; (4) store a poll of the vendor's shutdown signal (OpenAI shutdown_date; Google tables) with each project and re-check on a schedule shorter than the shortest notice (2 weeks for previews and latest-alias swaps); (5) for work that must be re-rendered bit-for-bit, prefer open weights pinned to a commit and run on your own hardware (see HF pinning); (6) for hosted-only models, treat the delivered master and the source frames as the archive and plan edits as new generations or edits on the master. Failure modes: the same id can still respond but be served by a revised stable model; output determinism is not promised in any page read. Limitations: this is a synthesis; no page read promises identical outputs for identical inputs. Version/date: provider pages fetched 2026-10-23. Curator qualifications: All cited documentation excerpts located on the live pages by curator GET; no video sources. Limitations: Entirely an inference from separate vendor statements; no provider guarantees repeatable outputs. Checklist items are not validated by a case study. Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.

{
  "citations": [
    {
      "url": "https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/models",
      "note": "Model version name patterns; Model deprecation notice periods"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://platform.openai.com/docs/deprecations",
      "note": "Model version name patterns; Model deprecation notice periods"
    }
  ]
}