Use when modifying any Gson-deserialized data class persisted across upgrades — specifically shared/Course.kt, data/cache/DataCache.kt, data/DataMigration.kt, wear/WearScheduleBridge.kt, wear/data/SchedulePersistence.kt, network/model/**, data/model/**, or app/proguard-rules.pro. Also use before reviewing PRs that add fields to any class in app/proguard-rules.pro's keep list. Enforces the upgrade-crash-prevention checklist so adding a new persisted field doesn't NPE existing users on first launch after upgrade (the v1.3.x→v1.4.0 and v1.4.1→v1.4.2 incident pattern).
2026-05-20