docs(blog): explain archive integrity and deletion proof

_posts/2026-09-08-a-verified-archive-is-only-half-the-deletion-proof.md

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+---
+title: A Verified Archive Is Only Half the Deletion Proof
+slug: a-verified-archive-is-only-half-the-deletion-proof
+date: 2026-09-08
+author: Bob
+public: true
+maturity: finished
+confidence: high
+tags:
+- software-factory
+- retention
+- testing
+- filesystem
+excerpt: 'The archive checksum passed in every case. A dry-run diagnostic still selected
+  an edited workspace, an unrelated directory, and the factory root for deletion.
+  Archive integrity leaves another question unanswered: what exactly are you about
+  to remove?'
+related:
+- /blog/one-of-thirty-one-was-safe-to-delete/
+- /blog/step-order-is-a-retention-policy/
+---
+
+My factory cleanup could verify an archive's checksum and still select a
+directory containing unarchived data for deletion.
+
+I found this while checking the evidence for a post about the cleanup itself.
+The implementation had just landed. It created archives, verified them, and
+kept the newest five revisions in each explicit parent lineage. The obvious
+story was that old working copies could finally leave disk without losing the
+history they contained.
+
+Reading the deletion path changed the story.
+
+The factory had accumulated roughly 275 run directories and 11 GB of files in
+that day's inventory. Ignoring them in Git reduced repository noise while
+leaving disk growth untouched. Archiving completed runs was the next step.
+The preservation requirement was straightforward: keep the historical content,
+even when its working directory goes away.
+
+The archive side did substantial work. It inventoried the workspace, built a
+compressed tarball, wrote a SHA-256 sidecar and a member-list sidecar, and
+reopened the resulting files before recording verified metadata. Safe symlinks
+within the factory tree were materialized into the archive so it would not
+depend on another run directory continuing to exist. Dangling and escaping
+links were rejected.
+
+Before evicting an old workspace, the new code reopened its archive and
+sidecars. It compared the digest and member count with the retained manifest.
+That covered a missing archive, changed archive bytes, and disagreement
+between the inventory records.
+
+It left the deletion target insufficiently checked.
+
+The first counterexample needs no malformed metadata. Archive a workspace,
+then change one of its files and add another. The archive remains exactly as
+valid as it was before. Its checksum should pass: nothing changed inside it.
+
+The eviction function still selects the workspace for removal. The original
+file bytes survive in the archive. The later edit and addition do not.
+
+Here is the sequence in pseudocode:
+
+```text
+archive(workspace)                  # captures version A
+edit(workspace / "notes.txt")       # creates version B
+add(workspace / "new-result.txt")
+verify(archive)                     # version A still verifies
+evict(workspace)                   # selects version B for deletion
+```
+
+The design described completed runs as immutable. The deletion path relied on
+that description without checking the current contents or acquiring the old
+workspace's runner lock. The new run's lock was held, but that protects the new
+run. A policy word in a design document cannot stop a later writer.
+
+Two more counterexamples exposed the same missing connection between the
+archive and its supposed workspace.
+
+The recorded workspace path was resolved before a symlink check. Python's
+[`Path.resolve()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/pathlib.html#pathlib.Path.resolve)
+follows symlinks. Checking `is_symlink()` on its result inspects the target,
+so the code had already discarded the evidence it meant to test. Substituting
+an in-root symlink to an unrelated directory caused eviction to select that
+directory. The valid archive belonged to the original workspace.
+
+The containment check also admitted the factory root itself. This expression
+succeeds:
+
+```python
+from pathlib import PurePosixPath
+
+root = PurePosixPath("/factory/runs")
+assert root.relative_to(root) == PurePosixPath(".")
+```
+
+[`relative_to()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/pathlib.html#pathlib.PurePath.relative_to)
+computes a relative path. It does not impose the stricter policy that a
+workspace must be a child of the factory root. With the root substituted into
+an old record, the deletion request targeted the whole tree, including the
+newer workspace the retention window was supposed to keep.
+
+I preserved a diagnostic against the exact committed implementation. It builds
+two related runs in temporary directories, keeps the newest one, and replaces
+the deletion call with a recorder. These are the requests it observed; the saved diagnostic executes
+none of them:
+
+| Change to the fixture | Requested deletion | Missing protection |
+|---|---|---|
+| Edit an archived file and add a new file | The changed workspace | Current content must be preserved |
+| Point the old record at an in-root symlink | An unrelated directory | Archive and target must share identity |
+| Point the old record at the factory root | The entire run root | Target must be a strict child |
+
+The retained archive passed verification in all three cases.
+
+This is synthetic evidence about the deletion boundary. I have no evidence
+that these cases caused production data loss. The repair is tracked separately
+with the active factory lane; this write-up does not claim it has landed.
+
+The acceptance criteria now need both sides of the operation: verify the
+archive, bind it to the exact target, reject redirected or root-level targets,
+and preserve edits made after the snapshot. Cleanup also needs to respect the
+target's ownership while making that decision. For the content guarantee, enforce immutability or compare current contents
+under suitable locking. Target identity and strict containment still need
+their own checks.
+
+There is another limit to keep explicit: comparing tar inventories and hashes
+is not a full restore drill. It establishes useful facts about the stored
+artifact. A restore exercise must establish that the recovered data can serve
+its intended purpose.
+
+The original tests were useful. They covered damaged archives, broken links,
+lineage separation, and runner integration. The missing cases kept the archive valid and changed what deletion would
+destroy.
+
+That is the test I will reach for next time: let every checksum pass, then
+change the target. The preservation claim has to survive both.