transaction on SOW

SOW v0.3.0

Mon, 10 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

SOW 0.3.0 is a performance, durability, and product-focus release. Plain repository generation completes with one package-content pass. Managed repositories avoid per-object membership queries, reuse authenticated package facts, and promote payloads in bounded group commits. The shipping binary and its release pipeline are also consolidated around the repository workflows that SOW supports.

Plain: one package-content pass

The default unsigned sow create path hashes and parses each RPM or DEB once, with parallelism controlled by --jobs. Metadata is rendered from the retained inspection result. Before publication, SOW performs one final package-set and file-stat snapshot check, catching concurrent input changes without reading and hashing every package again.

Coordinated Publication Decision

Fri, 14 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Decision finalized for SOW 0.4.0

An earlier version of this record proposed an rclone executor, publish --dry-run, and a separate sow audit command. None of those surfaces shipped in 0.4.0. SOW has no rclone dependency, publish has no --dry-run, and sow audit is not a command.

This page preserves the decision boundary so a historical proposal cannot be mistaken for the current product. The normative behavior is documented in sow publish and Publication & Recovery.

Design Records

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Design records explain why SOW adopted a contract, what it rejected, and which evidence boundary applies. They are ordered by date, which records when the rationale first took its maintained form; lastmod records later editorial or implementation-alignment updates. Release notes and source tags remain authoritative for when behavior actually shipped.

Authority and evidence

This column is the maintained authority for design rationale and decision history. Current commands, configuration, and operator behavior remain in SOW Docs; exact behavior of a historical release remains attached to that release’s source tag and release note.

Publication & Recovery

Sat, 08 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Building and publishing are separate state transitions. A build produces a target-neutral Generation. Publication applies that Generation to one provider prefix and records enough evidence to recover without guessing.

Ownership split

Repository-scoped	Target-prefix-scoped
Package Object	Publication Attempt
Desired and Built state	Applied Checkpoint
Generation and Changeset	Remote inventory
Retained payload/metadata references	Grace and deletion evidence

The split prevents a successful filesystem publication from being treated as proof about R2, and prevents one target’s partial attempt from contaminating another target.

Transactions & Recovery

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This page explains how Managed mode prevents a live pointer from naming missing content and how it coordinates SQLite state with filesystem changes.

The invariant

On a supported local POSIX filesystem, a client following a Managed protocol pointer reads a complete old view or a complete new view, including after interruption.

Everything below exists to hold that line: metadata is fully staged and verified before anything public moves, the pointer swap is the commit decision, and every operation records enough durable evidence that the next command can finish it or undo it without guessing.

Observability & Audit

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Each read surface answers a different question.

Command	Question	Writes?
`status`	What state is the Repository in?	no
`check`	Does the selected Repository satisfy the complete delivery contract?	no
`changes`	What physical files differ between Built Generations?	no
`log`	Which operations and dispositions were recorded?	no
`retain ls`	Which Generations are explicit local GC roots?	no

`status`: cheap state

sow status -r local

It reports the Desired revision, Built Generation, dirty Dists, pending payload counts, lock state, and ready_to_copy. It does not hash the public tree, recover an operation, or build.

transaction on SOW

SOW v0.3.0

Plain: one package-content pass

Coordinated Publication Decision

Design Records

Authority and evidence

Publication & Recovery

Ownership split

Transactions & Recovery

The invariant

Observability & Audit

status: cheap state

`status`: cheap state