diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 7da5204..1ce136d 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -1,5 +1,20 @@
 # OpenAdapt Capture
 
+> [!IMPORTANT]
+> **Status: Experimental — optional native recorder, not the product.** The
+> Capture → Train → Deploy pipeline described below is the historical ML
+> research direction, not the current product flow; the compiler does not
+> require this package.
+>
+> The OpenAdapt product is the demonstration compiler,
+> [`openadapt-flow`](https://github.com/OpenAdaptAI/openadapt-flow), installed
+> via the [`OpenAdapt`](https://github.com/OpenAdaptAI/OpenAdapt) launcher
+> (`pip install openadapt`): it compiles a demonstrated GUI workflow into a
+> deterministic, locally executable program. Healthy runs make no model calls,
+> and it halts instead of guessing when verification fails. Lifecycle labels for
+> every repository are in the
+> [repository lifecycle registry](https://github.com/OpenAdaptAI/.github/blob/main/REPOSITORY_LIFECYCLE.md).
+
 [![Build Status](https://github.com/OpenAdaptAI/openadapt-capture/actions/workflows/test.yml/badge.svg)](https://github.com/OpenAdaptAI/openadapt-capture/actions/workflows/test.yml)
 [![License: MIT](https://img.shields.io/badge/License-MIT-yellow.svg)](https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)
 [![Python 3.10+](https://img.shields.io/badge/python-3.10%2B-blue)](https://www.python.org/downloads/)