Atomic Publish & Checkpoints

Checkpointing needs atomic metadata publication even when bytes are stored in an external object store.

Current Primitive

PublishArtifact uploads the object body first, then publishes metadata with a single metadata command:

body bytes -> object store
metadata command:
  - inode attr
  - dentry projection
  - body descriptor

The namespace entry appears only after the metadata command commits.

Current And Remaining Semantics

• atomic replace returns the old body descriptor;
• durable object GC queue stores old body refs from remove/replace;
• snapshot pins protect old body refs until retired;
• chunk manifests describe large checkpoint files;
• read-only snapshot FUSE mounts can expose a pinned subtree as /;
• service-level typed watch replay lets checkpoint consumers observe publish and replace events;
• live FUSE mounts consume typed watch replay to invalidate kernel entry/inode caches;

Remaining work:

• SDK watch consumer integration and broader node-local cache invalidation;

Failure Handling

The product contract should be explicit:

• object upload failure means no metadata publish;
• metadata publish failure returns staged object refs for explicit cleanup;
• metadata remove/replace success persists old body refs in the metadata GC queue and returns the old body descriptor to the caller;
• snapshot pins protect old body refs from object cleanup until retired;
• snapshot pins protect metadata history before history GC;
• typed watch replay uses the durable watch log rather than MVCC history.