/// GUIDES / LIFECYCLE RULES

Lifecycle rules

Lifecycle rules let your bucket clean up after itself. Open a Fleet, go to Settings → Lifecycle, and build rules in a visual editor — no hand-written JSON. storafleet turns your choices into the provider's lifecycle configuration for you.

What lifecycle rules do

A rule automatically acts on objects over time. With the editor you can:

• Expire objects after N days — delete objects once they reach a chosen age.
• Transition to cheaper storage classes — move older objects to lower-cost tiers, where the provider supports it.
• Abort incomplete multipart uploads — clean up partial uploads that were never finished so they stop costing you storage.

Build a rule

1. In Settings → Lifecycle, click Add rule.
2. Optionally scope the rule with a prefix so it only affects matching keys.
3. Choose the action: an expiration, a transition, an abort-incomplete-upload, or a combination.
4. Set the number of days for the action to take effect.
5. Save — storafleet validates the rule against the provider before applying it.

Provider-aware validation

Not every provider implements the full lifecycle spec, so storafleet only offers what will actually work:

• AWS and Cloudflare R2 support storage-class transitions along with expiration and abort rules.
• Backblaze B2, Wasabi, MinIO, and DigitalOcean Spaces do not support transitions — they only allow expiration and abort incomplete multipart upload rules.

Backblaze B2 specifics

Backblaze B2 is the most restrictive. On top of having no transitions, B2 also rejects several other rule features, so storafleet steers you toward what it accepts:

• No date-based expiration — use a days-based expiration instead.
• No tag or size filters — scope rules with a prefix instead.
• No disabled rules — a rule must be active rather than saved in a disabled state.