Fair, and you’re right to push back. If retention is decided, a job that says “not done” lies in the other direction. The visible line was the point; the job was just my way of getting one. A single row on the dashboard that reads “execution history: kept indefinitely, by design” does the same work the stub would have, and nags nobody. Then “kept forever” and “nobody thought about it” stop looking alike.
On the destination side, leaving it unbuilt is fine as long as the label says which side the zero came from. “0 records returned” next to the tool name already reads that way to me.
The label now reads 0 records returned. Your sentence was the spec. The word says which side the zero came from, and it claims nothing about the destination, which is the half I cannot prove yet.
The execution history page now says history is kept indefinitely by design, and that nothing there is deleted on a schedule. You were right that the visible line was the point, and your second version is better than the stub. A line that states a decision has nothing left to nag about.
The badge tests failed on the wording change before I noticed it myself, which is the first time a test has caught me on a copy edit.