In version 5.1, we added to support storing state in status,see:
https://javaoperatorsdk.io/blog/2025/05/22/how-to-guarantee-allocated-values-for-next-reconciliation/

Currently, dependent resources have explicit support for state in a separate resource:
https://javaoperatorsdk.io/docs/documentation/dependent-resource-and-workflows/dependent-resources/#external-state-tracking-dependent-resources

would be nice to check on this, if we should support this explicitly in dependent resources, but at least we should provide a sample how to do it.