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+ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
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+
+# Add support for Detached annotation
+
+## Status
+
+implementable
+
+## Summary
+
+Provide a way to prevent management of BaremetalHost resources
+after provisioning is completed, to facilitate the pivot of
+BaremetalHost resources in a multi-tier deployment.
+
+## Motivation
+
+In a multi-tier deployment where one cluster deploys another, the "parent"
+cluster will contain BMH resources for initial provisioning,
+but the "child" cluster will later contain BMH resources that reference the
+same physical hosts.
+
+In this scenario it's necessary to prevent management operations from the
+parent cluster such as asserting power state, or BMH actions on the child
+cluster such as the [reboot annotation](reboot-interface.md) may fail due
+to unwanted BMC interactions from the parent cluster.
+
+There is an existing
+[pause annotation](https://github.com/metal3-io/baremetal-operator/blob/master/docs/api.md#pausing-reconciliation)
+which pauses reconciliation of the BMH resources, but this does not remove
+the underlying Ironic host, so power management actions may be performed
+even when the BMH is marked as `paused`.
+
+### Goals
+
+* Add an API to disable management of a BMH on the parent cluster, including
+  all power management actions
+* Make it possible to delete a BMH resource in this "detached" without
+  triggering deprovisioning
+* Ensure it is possible to restart management of BMH resources (in the case
+  where they are not deleted from the parent cluster)
+* Avoid changing behavior of the existing `paused` annotation since that
+  behavior is necessary as part of the CAPI pivot process.
+
+### Non-Goals
+
+* Any coordination between the tiers of BMH resources, that has to be handled externally
+
+## Proposal
+
+### Expected workflow
+
+* User creates BMH resource(s) in parent cluster
+* Provisioning of BMH triggered, which results in a running child cluster
+* Parent cluster BMH resources annotated as detached
+* Child cluster BMH resources created, with BMC credentials, but marked
+  externallyProvisioned: true
+
+At this point, the physical hosts are owned by the child cluster BMH, but the
+inventory still exists in the parent cluster.
+
+In the event that all of the child cluster hosts require reprovisioning, it
+would be necessary to remove the detached annotation on the parent BMH resources,
+so that management of those resources can resume, e.g for reprovisioning.
+
+### API changes
+
+Add support for a new annotation, where the key is `baremetalhost.metal3.io/detached`
+
+```yaml
+baremetalhost.metal3.io/detached: ""
+```
+
+The value is ignored, similar to the `paused` annotation and could optionally
+include context from the system/user which applies the annotation.
+
+This annotation will only be consumed while the BMH is in either `Provisioned`
+or `ExternallyProvisioned` state, in all other cases it is ignored.
+
+This annotation will be evaluated early in the `Reconcile()` loop, but after the
+`paused` `status` and `hardwaredetails` annotations are evaluated.
+
+When the `detached` annotation is set, we will check the `status.provisioning.ID`
+and if necessary delete the corresponding host from Ironic (without triggering
+deprovisioning)
+
+When the `detached` annotation is removed, we will re-create the host in Ironic
+via the existing `ensureRegistered` state machine logic.
+
+If a BMH resource is deleted while the `detached` annotation is set, we will
+move directly to the `Deleting` state, without performing any `Deprovisioning`.
+
+## Alternatives
+
+It would be possible to modify the behavior of the
+[pause annotation](https://github.com/metal3-io/baremetal-operator/blob/master/docs/api.md#pausing-reconciliation)
+such that Ironic hosts are removed while paused, however
+this means that we cannot reflect any error via the status
+or increment the errorCount for the retry backoff.
+
+We could add an API that sets the Ironic
+[maintenance mode flag](https://docs.openstack.org/api-ref/baremetal/?expanded=set-maintenance-flag-detail#set-maintenance-flag)
+but this means hosts could potentially permanently be in this state
+and there are concerns about corner-cases such as adoption when an
+ephemeral Ironic is used and a rechedule occurs.
+
+## References
+