@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+---
+'@objectstack/objectql': patch
+---
+
+`LifecycleService` asks the registry whether `sys_organization` is registered before its governance tenant scan reads it, so a composition that registers no `sys_organization` sweeps single-tenant again instead of aborting every sweep
+
+Clause-②: no
+
+- The engine's in-process verbs refuse an object name the registry does not resolve (`OBJECT_NOT_FOUND`, 404) before any driver is asked. Take a composition with a settings service and lifecycle-declared objects but no `sys_organization` object. Its tenant scan got that refusal instead of a missing table, so every sweep aborted before applying any policy. The scan now asks `engine.registry.getObject('sys_organization')` first, the same shape `ObjectQL.probeInstallOrganizations` takes. An unregistered object answers "no tenant overrides", and the sweep runs one global pass on each declared window.
+- A registered `sys_organization` is read as before. A missing table is still the one benign driver cause. Every other failure still aborts the sweep and is reported through `report.errors`, an `OBJECT_NOT_FOUND` from that read included.
+- `LifecycleEngineLike['registry']` now declares the optional `getObject?(name)` member the scan reads. A registry without it cannot be asked, and the scan then reads exactly as before. No new export and no change to the sweep report's shape.
@@ -0,0 +1,277 @@
+// Copyright (c) 2026 ObjectStack. Licensed under the Apache-2.0 license.
+
+/**
+ * [#21597] `loadGovernance`'s tenant scan asks the REGISTRY whether
+ * `sys_organization` is registered before it reads it.
+ *
+ * Since commit eb9ef791bd an in-process engine verb refuses an object name the
+ * registry does not resolve, with `OBJECT_NOT_FOUND` (404), before any driver
+ * is asked. A composition that registers no `sys_organization` therefore no
+ * longer reaches a driver with the tenant scan's read: it gets the engine's
+ * refusal. That is not a missing table, so the scan's catch rethrew it, and
+ * every sweep aborted before applying a single policy.
+ *
+ * Unregistered is the single-tenant answer. With no organization object there
+ * is no tenant to hold an override, and that is the same answer
+ * `ObjectQL.probeInstallOrganizations` gives to the same question. What does
+ * NOT change is the catch: a missing table on a REGISTERED `sys_organization`
+ * is still the one benign driver cause, and every other failure still aborts
+ * the sweep (#12853). In particular an `OBJECT_NOT_FOUND` is not read as
+ * absence wholesale: the registry already said the object is registered, so a
+ * refusal arriving from the read is about something else.
+ *
+ * Every case runs on a REAL `ObjectQL` engine over a stub driver, so the
+ * refusal the guard avoids is the engine's own and not a double's guess at it.
+ * `engine.find` is spied with call-through: the spy records what the sweep
+ * asked the engine, and the engine still answers.
+ */
+
+import { describe, it, expect, vi } from 'vitest';
+import type { EngineQueryOptions } from '@objectstack/spec/data';
+import { ObjectQL } from '../engine.js';
+import { LifecycleService } from './lifecycle-service.js';
+import { parseLifecycleDuration } from './duration.js';
+
+const FIXED_NOW = 1_700_000_000_000;
+const PACKAGE_ID = 'lifecycle-organization-registry';
+
+/** The lifecycle-declared object every sweep below reaps. */
+const TELEMETRY_OBJ = {
+  name: 'sys_job_run',
+  fields: { status: { type: 'text' } },
+  lifecycle: { class: 'telemetry', retention: { maxAge: '30d' } },
+} as any;
+
+const ORG_OBJECT = { name: 'sys_organization', fields: { name: { type: 'text' } } } as any;
+
+/** A system-context read of one row, spelled as a typed query. */
+const ORG_PROBE: EngineQueryOptions = { limit: 1, context: { isSystem: true } };
+
+const isoCutoff = (literal: string) => new Date(FIXED_NOW - parseLifecycleDuration(literal)).toISOString();
+
+/** The regulated tenant keeps its rows three times longer than the global window. */
+const TENANT_OVERRIDES = { org_reg: { retention_overrides: { sys_job_run: { maxAge: '90d' } } } };
+
+/** Settings service whose only values are tenant-scoped ones. */
+function fakeSettings(tenantValues: Record<string, Record<string, unknown>>) {
+  return {
+    async get(_ns: string, key: string, ctx?: Record<string, unknown>) {
+      const tenantId = ctx?.tenantId as string | undefined;
+      if (tenantId && tenantValues[tenantId] && key in tenantValues[tenantId]) {
+        return { value: tenantValues[tenantId][key], source: 'tenant' };
+      }
+      return { value: undefined, source: 'default' };
+    },
+  };
+}
+
+/** A transient database outage, the shape `isMissingTableError` answers `false` for. */
+const outage = () =>
+  Object.assign(new Error('connect ECONNREFUSED 127.0.0.1:5432'), { code: 'ECONNREFUSED' });
+
+/** The benign unprovisioned table, in the SQLite-family spelling. */
+const missingTable = () => new Error('no such table: sys_organization');
+
+const abortedError = (message: string) =>
+  `governance snapshot could not be loaded (${message}) — sweep aborted before any policy ` +
+  'was applied, so no rows were reaped for this object';
+
+/**
+ * A real engine with `sys_job_run` registered, and `sys_organization`
+ * registered only when asked. The stub driver answers the organization read
+ * with `organizationRead` and every candidate page with no rows.
+ */
+async function lifecycleEngine(opts: {
+  registerOrganization: boolean;
+  organizationRead?: () => Array<Record<string, unknown>>;
+}) {
+  const driverReads: string[] = [];
+  const driverDeletes: string[] = [];
+  const organizationRead = opts.organizationRead ?? (() => [{ id: 'org_reg' }]);
+  const driver = {
+    name: 'memory',
+    version: '0.0.0',
+    supports: {},
+    async connect() {}, async disconnect() {}, async checkHealth() { return true; },
+    async execute() { return null; },
+    async find(object: string) {
+      driverReads.push(object);
+      return object === 'sys_organization' ? organizationRead() : [];
+    },
+    async findOne() { return null; },
+    async count() { return 0; },
+    async create(_object: string, data: any) { return { id: 'r_1', ...data }; },
+    async update(_object: string, id: string, data: any) { return { id, ...data }; },
+    async delete(object: string) { driverDeletes.push(object); return true; },
+    async bulkCreate(_object: string, rows: any[]) { return rows; },
+    async bulkUpdate() { return []; },
+    async bulkDelete(object: string) { driverDeletes.push(object); },
+    async syncSchema() {},
+  } as any;
+
+  const engine = new ObjectQL();
+  engine.registerDriver(driver, true);
+  await engine.init();
+  engine.registry.registerObject(TELEMETRY_OBJ, PACKAGE_ID);
+  if (opts.registerOrganization) engine.registry.registerObject(ORG_OBJECT, PACKAGE_ID);
+
+  const find = vi.spyOn(engine, 'find');
+  const callsOn = (object: string) =>
+    find.mock.calls.map((call, i) => ({ call, i })).filter(({ call }) => call[0] === object);
+
+  return {
+    engine,
+    driverReads,
+    driverDeletes,
+    /** The `where` of every candidate read the reaper issued through the engine. */
+    reapReads: () => callsOn('sys_job_run').map(({ call }) => call[1]?.where),
+    /** How many times the tenant scan asked the engine for `sys_organization`. */
+    orgReads: () => callsOn('sys_organization').length,
+    /** What the engine rejected the tenant scan's read with. */
+    orgReadRejection: async () => {
+      const [first] = callsOn('sys_organization');
+      return (find.mock.results[first.i].value as Promise<unknown>).then(
+        () => { throw new Error('the tenant scan read resolved; expected a rejection'); },
+        (error: unknown) => error as Error & { code?: unknown; status?: unknown; object?: unknown },
+      );
+    },
+  };
+}
+
+function sweepOnce(engine: ObjectQL, warn: (msg: string) => void = () => {}) {
+  return new LifecycleService({
+    getEngine: () => engine,
+    logger: { info: () => {}, warn, debug: () => {} },
+    now: () => FIXED_NOW,
+    initialDelayMs: 1,
+    sweepIntervalMs: 10,
+    getSettings: () => fakeSettings(TENANT_OVERRIDES),
+    referenceAudit: { enabled: false },
+  }).sweep();
+}
+
+describe('LifecycleService.sweep — the tenant scan asks the registry first (#21597)', () => {
+  // ── POSITIVE CONTROL ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+
+  it('control: a REGISTERED, provisioned sys_organization is read, and its tenant gets its own window', async () => {
+    const box = await lifecycleEngine({ registerOrganization: true });
+
+    const report = await sweepOnce(box.engine);
+
+    // The guard does not skip the scan for a registered object: the read
+    // reached the driver, and the tenant pass ran before the global one.
+    expect(box.orgReads()).toBe(1);
+    expect(box.driverReads.filter((o) => o === 'sys_organization')).toHaveLength(1);
+    expect(box.reapReads()).toEqual([
+      { created_at: { $lt: isoCutoff('90d') }, organization_id: 'org_reg' },
+      {
+        created_at: { $lt: isoCutoff('30d') },
+        $or: [{ organization_id: { $nin: ['org_reg'] } }, { organization_id: null }],
+      },
+    ]);
+    expect(report.errors).toEqual([]);
+  });
+
+  // ── THE DEFECT ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+
+  it('premise: with no sys_organization registered, the engine refuses the read itself', async () => {
+    const box = await lifecycleEngine({ registerOrganization: false });
+
+    const refusal = await box.engine
+      .find('sys_organization', ORG_PROBE)
+      .then(() => undefined, (error: unknown) => error as Error & { code?: unknown; status?: unknown; object?: unknown });
+
+    expect(refusal?.code).toBe('OBJECT_NOT_FOUND');
+    expect(refusal?.status).toBe(404);
+    expect(refusal?.object).toBe('sys_organization');
+    // Refused before any driver was asked: this is not a missing table.
+    expect(box.driverReads).toEqual([]);
+  });
+
+  it('an UNREGISTERED sys_organization is the single-tenant answer: the sweep runs on the global window', async () => {
+    const warn = vi.fn();
+    const box = await lifecycleEngine({ registerOrganization: false });
+
+    const report = await sweepOnce(box.engine, warn);
+
+    // The sweep was not aborted. Asserted first so that a regression shows the
+    // abort it reported, not a call count.
+    expect(report.errors).toEqual([]);
+    // The registry answered, so the scan never read: no engine refusal to
+    // abort on, and nothing reached the driver for `sys_organization`.
+    expect(box.orgReads()).toBe(0);
+    expect(box.driverReads.filter((o) => o === 'sys_organization')).toEqual([]);
+    // The sweep RAN: one global pass, no tenant pass.
+    expect(box.reapReads()).toEqual([{ created_at: { $lt: isoCutoff('30d') } }]);
+    expect(report.swept).toEqual([
+      { object: 'sys_job_run', class: 'telemetry', policy: 'retention', cutoff: isoCutoff('30d'), deleted: 0 },
+    ]);
+    expect(warn).not.toHaveBeenCalled();
+  });
+
+  // ── THE BENIGN DRIVER CAUSE IS UNCHANGED ──────────────────────────────────
+
+  it('a REGISTERED but unprovisioned sys_organization keeps the missing-table answer', async () => {
+    const box = await lifecycleEngine({
+      registerOrganization: true,
+      organizationRead: () => { throw missingTable(); },
+    });
+
+    const report = await sweepOnce(box.engine);
+
+    // Proof the benign branch was exercised: the scan read, the driver threw.
+    expect(box.orgReads()).toBe(1);
+    expect(box.driverReads.filter((o) => o === 'sys_organization')).toHaveLength(1);
+    expect(box.reapReads()).toEqual([{ created_at: { $lt: isoCutoff('30d') } }]);
+    expect(report.errors).toEqual([]);
+    expect(report.swept).toHaveLength(1);
+  });
+
+  // ── EVERYTHING ELSE STILL ABORTS ──────────────────────────────────────────
+
+  it('a real driver fault on a registered sys_organization still aborts the sweep, with the fault itself', async () => {
+    const warn = vi.fn();
+    const box = await lifecycleEngine({
+      registerOrganization: true,
+      organizationRead: () => { throw outage(); },
+    });
+
+    const report = await sweepOnce(box.engine, warn);
+    const fault = await box.orgReadRejection();
+
+    // The read the sweep aborted on rejected with the driver's own fault.
+    expect(fault.code).toBe('ECONNREFUSED');
+    expect(fault.message).toContain('ECONNREFUSED');
+    // …and that fault, not a swallowed outcome, is what the sweep reports.
+    expect(box.reapReads()).toEqual([]);
+    expect(box.driverDeletes).toEqual([]);
+    expect(report.swept).toEqual([]);
+    expect(report.errors).toEqual([{ object: 'sys_job_run', error: abortedError(fault.message) }]);
+    expect(warn).toHaveBeenCalledTimes(1);
+    expect(warn.mock.calls[0][0]).toContain(`(${fault.message})`);
+  });
+
+  it('an OBJECT_NOT_FOUND attributed to ANOTHER object is not read as absence: the sweep aborts', async () => {
+    const box = await lifecycleEngine({ registerOrganization: true });
+    // A hook on the organization read that itself reads an object this
+    // composition never registered — the engine refuses THAT read, and the
+    // refusal surfaces from the `sys_organization` scan.
+    box.engine.registerHook(
+      'beforeFind',
+      async () => {
+        await box.engine.find('sys_org_unit', ORG_PROBE);
+      },
+      { object: 'sys_organization' },
+    );
+
+    const report = await sweepOnce(box.engine);
+    const refusal = await box.orgReadRejection();
+
+    expect(refusal.code).toBe('OBJECT_NOT_FOUND');
+    expect(refusal.status).toBe(404);
+    expect(refusal.object).toBe('sys_org_unit');
+    expect(box.reapReads()).toEqual([]);
+    expect(report.swept).toEqual([]);
+    expect(report.errors).toEqual([{ object: 'sys_job_run', error: abortedError(refusal.message) }]);
+  });
+});
@@ -85,7 +85,21 @@ export const DEFAULT_LIFECYCLE_INITIAL_DELAY_MS = 60_000;
 
 /** Minimal engine surface the service needs — duck-typed for tests. */
 export interface LifecycleEngineLike {
-  registry: { getAllObjects(): LifecycleObjectLike[] };
+  registry: {
+    getAllObjects(): LifecycleObjectLike[];
+    /**
+     * [#21597] Registry presence by name: the question the engine's in-process
+     * verbs ask before they read (`ObjectQL`'s `SchemaRegistry.getObject`). A
+     * name it does not resolve is refused with `OBJECT_NOT_FOUND` before any
+     * driver is asked, so the governance tenant scan asks this first and reads
+     * `sys_organization` only when it is registered.
+     *
+     * Optional so that a double modelling only `getAllObjects` stays a legal
+     * engine. Such a registry cannot be asked, and the tenant scan then reads
+     * exactly as it did before this member existed. Every real engine has it.
+     */
+    getObject?(name: string): unknown;
+  };
   delete(
     object: string,
     options: { where: Record<string, unknown>; multi: true; context: LifecycleSweepContext },
@@ -806,7 +820,10 @@ export class LifecycleService {
    * [#12853] The tenant scan is not. A `sys_organization` read that FAILED
    * throws out of here, because an empty `tenantOverrides` is the same value
    * as "this deployment has no tenant overrides" and the caller acts on the
-   * difference by DELETING rows. See the catch below. */
+   * difference by DELETING rows. See the catch below.
+   *
+   * [#21597] The scan asks the registry before it reads. An unregistered
+   * `sys_organization` is never read, and answers "no tenant overrides". */
   private async loadGovernance(
     engine: LifecycleEngineLike,
     declared: LifecycleObjectLike[],
@@ -835,7 +852,22 @@ export class LifecycleService {
     // Tenant-level windows (ADR-0057 §3.2): only overrides genuinely stored
     // at TENANT scope count — inherited global values would otherwise turn
     // every tenant into a "tenant override" and break the global pass.
-    if (typeof engine.find === 'function' && declared.length > 0) {
+    //
+    // [#21597] Registry first, the shape `ObjectQL.probeInstallOrganizations`
+    // takes on the same question. Since commit eb9ef791bd the engine's
+    // in-process verbs refuse a name the registry does not resolve with
+    // `OBJECT_NOT_FOUND`, before any driver is asked. So in a composition that
+    // registers no `sys_organization` (a lean embedding) the read below cannot
+    // reach a table at all, and its refusal is not the missing-table cause the
+    // catch accepts: every sweep used to abort on it. That composition has no
+    // organization object, so it has no tenant to hold an override, and "no
+    // tenant overrides" is the truth: the single-tenant answer, given here
+    // without reading. The question is the registry's own `getObject`, the
+    // same one the refusal asks, never a list of names. A registry that cannot
+    // be asked (a double without `getObject`) reads as before.
+    const organizationUnregistered =
+      typeof engine.registry.getObject === 'function' && !engine.registry.getObject('sys_organization');
+    if (typeof engine.find === 'function' && declared.length > 0 && !organizationUnregistered) {
       try {
         const orgs = await engine.find('sys_organization', {
           limit: TENANT_SCAN_LIMIT,
@@ -887,6 +919,12 @@ export class LifecycleService {
         // incomplete evidence" is the correct failure direction: a log cannot
         // bring back a reaped row, and the rows this defers are still there for
         // the next sweep to reap once the read succeeds.
+        //
+        // [#21597] That includes an `OBJECT_NOT_FOUND`. The unregistered case
+        // never reaches this catch (the registry was asked above), so a
+        // refusal here names some other object (a hook's nested read, say) or
+        // contradicts the registry's own answer. Neither is evidence that no
+        // tenant exists, and neither is read as absence.
         if (!isMissingTableError(error, 'sys_organization')) throw error;
       }
     }
 
@@ -16,12 +16,15 @@
  *   * `resolveUserAuthzGrants` (`core/src/security/resolve-authz-context.ts`)
  *     `tryFind`s six `sys_*` tables per grant resolution — the resolver is
  *     fail-closed and must always resolve;
- *   * `ObjectQL.probeInstallOrganizations` (`objectql/src/engine.ts`) reads
- *     `sys_organization` and catches `isMissingTableError` **only**, which its
- *     own doc comment names as "the one benign cause";
- *   * `SeedLoaderService.resolveSoleOrganizationId`
- *     (`metadata-protocol/src/seed-loader.ts`) and
- *     `LifecycleService`'s governance snapshot read the same table best-effort;
+ *   * `ObjectQL.probeInstallOrganizations` (`objectql/src/engine.ts`) asks the
+ *     registry first and never reads an UNREGISTERED `sys_organization`; for a
+ *     registered one it catches `isMissingTableError` **only**, which its own
+ *     doc comment names as the one benign driver cause;
+ *   * `LifecycleService`'s governance snapshot takes the same registry-first
+ *     shape on the same table, and `SeedLoaderService.resolveSoleOrganizationId`
+ *     (`metadata-protocol/src/seed-loader.ts`) reads it best-effort, accepting a
+ *     missing table or the engine's `OBJECT_NOT_FOUND` refusal attributed to
+ *     `sys_organization` itself;
  *   * `runBuildProbes` (`metadata-protocol/src/build-probes.ts`) reads the
  *     object a published view is bound to, and turns a failure into a
  *     `view_read_failed` publish issue rather than an exception;