There can be scenarios where customers can perform random actions on the UI or cli that can cause issues to the functionality of ACM

List of potential actions they can perform * upgrading mce to the next version before mch might degrading something that is coupled between the two

• if we include ocp, scenarios could be where customers upgrade ocp versions above n+1 acm support (because the other way is not possible in upgrading acm above the support ocp version) so for example customer is on 2.12 with ocp 4.18 then attempts to upgrade to 4.19 which is outside the support range of acm 2.12

Note:
#forum-ocp-operator-fw has olm.maxOpenShiftVersion which allows operator-maintainers to automate warning/guards for "don't update OCP while you're running the current version of $OPERATOR".  But many operator-maintainers don't set that annotation. We backstop with docs: * You have updated all Operators previously installed through Operator Lifecycle Manager (OLM) to a version that is compatible with your target release. Updating the Operators ensures they have a valid update path when the default OperatorHub catalogs switch from the current minor version to the next during a cluster update. See Updating installed Operators for more information on how to check compatibility and, if necessary, update the installed Operators.

and hope that cluster admins remember to manually check before updating. Updating an OLM-installed operator beyond what the current OCP can handle shouldn't be possible, because the OLM operator catalogs used to feed installs/updates are specific to an OCP 4.y, and should only contain versions compatible with that 4.y.

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QE Hand Off Template (fill out when moving to Review) 9/16/25:

Summary of the Work:
What was implemented or fixed? Include a brief description of the problem (if applicable) and how it was addressed.
e.g., "Updated the UI to show validation errors for the form. The previous implementation did not surface backend validation issues."

Key Areas to Verify:

1. What functionality should QE focus on? List what was tested or what is most important to validate.
2. Ensure the new validation messages appear for required fields
3. Confirm the workflow still completes as expected after validation fixes
4. Any edge cases or high-risk areas touched by the change

Fix or Feature Availability:
When will this be available in a build?
Code merged on: YYYY-MM-DD
Expected downstream build tag (if known): example-build-tag
(Optional) Related PR(s): Link