diff --git a/doc/core/pending_api_cleanups.md b/doc/core/pending_api_cleanups.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..a16d3bf7781faca150c293e6b6793942f21888fc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/core/pending_api_cleanups.md
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+There are times when we make changes that include a temporary shim for
+backward-compatibility (e.g., a macro or some other function to preserve
+the original API) to avoid having to bump the minor version number in
+the next release.  However, when we do eventually want to release a
+feature that does change the API in a non-backward-compatible way, we
+will wind up bumping the minor version number anyway, at which point we
+can take the opportunity to clean up any pending backward-compatibility
+shims.
+
+This file lists all pending backward-compatibility changes that should
+be cleaned up the next time we are going to bump the minor version
+number:
+
+- remove `GRPC_ARG_MAX_MESSAGE_LENGTH` channel arg from
+  `include/grpc/impl/codegen/grpc_types.h` (commit `af00d8b`)