Org Expiration Check

Determine when a Salesforce org expires, how many days remain, and whether it has already expired — for one org, the default org, or every authenticated org. Results are prioritized (already-expired and soonest-expiring first) with a one-line summary. The skill can also emit machine-readable output for alerting, print backup commands for an at-risk org, and explain how to renew an expiring trial or Developer Edition org.

When to use

Trigger on requests like:

• "When does my trial org expire?" / "Is it still active or has it expired?"
• "How many days are left on my trial?"
• "Which of my orgs are expiring soon?" / "expiring within 30 days?"
• "Alert me / set up a cron job for expiring orgs" (use --json + --fail-if-expiring).
• "Back up my org before it expires" (use --preserve).
• "How do I extend / renew my trial (or Developer Edition) org?" (use --renew).

This skill covers trial editions, Developer Edition orgs (anything with a TrialExpirationDate), and scratch orgs (via the expirationDate from sf org list).

When NOT to use

Do not trigger this skill for:

• Sandbox refresh timing — that is not an expiration date.
• Creating, deleting, or switching orgs — this skill only reads expiration and prints guidance; it never creates, deletes, refreshes, or changes the active/default org. (To switch the default org, use dx-org-switch.)
• Non-Salesforce trials — e.g. AWS free tier, Netflix, or any other vendor's trial. This skill is Salesforce-only.

How expiration is determined

• Trial / Developer Edition orgs: the authoritative source is the org's Organization.TrialExpirationDate field, read via SOQL (sf data query). This field is null for paid/production orgs, which therefore report no trial expiration — that is expected, not an error.
• Scratch orgs: the expirationDate reported by sf org list (no SOQL query is issued for scratch orgs).

Steps

1. CRITICAL: Run the bundled helper script, which handles date math (days remaining, expired, expiring-soon warnings), prioritized sorting, and structured output, and works on macOS and Linux. Always invoke it by absolute path from the skill directory — never ./scripts/, which resolves against the user's current directory and will either run the wrong script or fail.

   Before executing, verify:

   • <skill_dir> is an absolute path (starts with /), not a relative path
   • The path points at this skill's own directory (the one containing this SKILL.md)

   bash "<skill_dir>/scripts/check_expiration.sh" <alias-or-username>   # one org
   bash "<skill_dir>/scripts/check_expiration.sh"                       # default org (target-org config)
   bash "<skill_dir>/scripts/check_expiration.sh" --all                 # every authenticated org
   bash "<skill_dir>/scripts/check_expiration.sh" --all --within 30     # only orgs expiring within 30 days
   

   Copy

   <skill_dir> is the absolute path to the directory containing this SKILL.md.

2. Relay the script output to the user. When an org could not be queried, surface the sf org login web command the script prints so the user can authenticate. Pick optional flags based on what the user asked for (see below): --preserve when they want to save their work, --renew when they ask how to extend, --json/--csv for automation, --fail-if-expiring for a cron/CI gate.

Options

Flag order is flexible and flags combine (e.g. --all --within 30 --json).

Prioritized output

Human output is grouped by urgency — Expired first, then Expiring soon (within 7 days, flagged Warning), then Active, then No trial expiration, then any orgs that could not be queried — and ends with a one-line summary:

Org expiration status for all authenticated orgs:

Expired:
  old-trial                       trial/DE edition expired 2026-06-20  (EXPIRED 19 day(s) ago)

Expiring soon (within 7 day(s)):
  almost-up                       trial/DE edition expires 2026-07-14  (expires in 5 day(s)  Warning)

Active (not expiring soon):
  acme-trial                      trial/DE edition expires 2026-08-15  (expires in 37 day(s))
  my-scratch                      scratch org expires 2026-07-25  (expires in 16 day(s))

No trial expiration (paid/production):
  prod                            no trial expiration (paid/production org)

Summary: 1 expired, 1 expiring within 7 day(s), 2 active, 1 with no expiration.

Structured output for alerting and cron (--json / --csv)

For dashboards, spreadsheets, or scheduled jobs, use --json or --csv to get machine-readable records (no prose). Each record has org, kind, expirationDate, daysRemaining (negative = expired, null = no expiration), status, and orgId. This is deterministic and needs no LLM in the loop.

# JSON, filtered to orgs expiring within 30 days:
bash "<skill_dir>/scripts/check_expiration.sh" --all --within 30 --json

Cron watchdog — --fail-if-expiring[=N] exits 3 (and prints an ALERT: line to stderr) if any org expires within N days (default 7), so a scheduled job can page you before an org lapses:

# crontab: every morning at 9, alert if anything expires within 7 days
0 9 * * *  bash "<skill_dir>/scripts/check_expiration.sh" --all --fail-if-expiring 7 \
             || mail -s "Salesforce org expiring soon" me@example.com

Preserve your work before an org lapses (--preserve)

When an org expires you lose access to its metadata and data. --preserve prints ready-to-run backup commands (metadata manifest + retrieve, and a bulk data export) for each expiring or already-expired org. It only prints the commands — review and run them yourself:

bash "<skill_dir>/scripts/check_expiration.sh" my-trial --preserve

Extend or renew a trial / Developer Edition org (--renew)

--renew prints the current guidance for keeping an org alive, and surfaces the Org IDs of at-risk orgs so the steps are actionable:

• Partners: request a Trial Org extension (up to +12 months) via partners.salesforce.com → Ask Agentforce → "I want to extend my Trial Org", providing the Org ID. Eligible while active or expired < 30 days; not for LDV orgs. (Salesforce Help article 000387818.)
• Nonprofits: email your Account Executive with subject "Trial Extension" and the trial-starter email, Org ID, and username; AMER the Power of Us Desk, other regions My Account support / 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE. Works even if already expired. (Article 004754220.)
• Developer Edition: DE orgs have no subscription clock but are deactivated after prolonged inactivity (~180 days without a login); log in periodically. If locked (not yet deleted), open a Salesforce Customer Support case to reactivate — once permanently deleted, an org cannot be recovered.
• To keep a standard trial's data/config, convert/subscribe to a paid edition before it lapses.

Exit codes

• 0 success
• 1 an org could not be queried (auth/connection error)
• 2 bad usage or a missing dependency (sf or jq)
• 3 --fail-if-expiring threshold breached (at least one org expiring)

When both apply, a --fail-if-expiring breach (3) takes precedence over an auth error (1): the alerting signal wins so a watchdog still fires. If your job must also detect unreachable orgs, run --json and inspect the records for status: "auth_error" in addition to checking the exit code. Note that an org whose credentials fail cannot be date-checked, so it never counts toward a --fail-if-expiring breach on its own.

--fail-if-expiring with no explicit number treats a following all-numeric argument as the day count (e.g. --fail-if-expiring 12345). In the rare case an org's alias is purely numeric, pass the org first (check_expiration.sh 12345 --fail-if-expiring 7) so it isn't mistaken for the threshold.

Authentication

If an org isn't authenticated (no saved credentials, or an expired/revoked token), the script does not fail silently — it prints the exact command to log in and then re-run:

  my-trial                       not authenticated — no saved credentials for this org

  To authenticate, run one of:
    sf org login web --alias "my-trial"
    sf org login web --alias <my-alias> --instance-url https://test.salesforce.com
  Then re-run this check. List existing logins with:  sf org list

sf org login web opens a browser to complete the OAuth flow. Use --instance-url https://test.salesforce.com for sandboxes, or a custom My Domain URL where applicable.

Manual fallback (if the script is unavailable)

# Trial/DE expiration for one org (null = not a trial / paid org):
sf data query --query "SELECT Id, TrialExpirationDate FROM Organization" --target-org <org> --json

# Scratch org expiration comes from the org list, not SOQL:
sf org list --json

Notes

• Requires the Salesforce CLI (sf) and jq on the PATH, plus at least one authenticated org (sf org login web).
• Avoid launching many sf commands concurrently — the CLI can be slow under contention. The script queries orgs sequentially for this reason.
• sf org list exposes a trailExpirationDate (note the typo) field that is often null; the script does not rely on it for trial/DE orgs — it uses the SOQL TrialExpirationDate, which is reliable. It does use expirationDate from the list for scratch orgs.