V0.5 — deterministic restore guarantees

[franchoy]

coldkeep v0.5 introduces deterministic restore guarantees for stored data.

This release ensures that any stored file can be reconstructed as a
byte-identical copy of the original input, consistently across repeated
restores, garbage collection cycles, and system restarts.

The storage engine now provides strong end-to-end validation, combining
deterministic chunk ordering with multi-level integrity checks and
full-file hash verification.

Highlights

• Deterministic, byte-identical restore (SHA-256 verified)
• Explicit chunk-order validation during restore
• Robust restore after garbage collection (GC-safe reconstruction)
• Repeatable restore results across multiple runs
• Cross-run determinism (same input → same chunk graph)
• Edge-case coverage (zero-byte files, boundary sizes, uneven tails)
• End-to-end dataset validation using realistic and adversarial fixtures
• Restart-safe restore guarantees (recovery + restore consistency)

This release focuses on correctness and predictability rather than new
storage features. The system is now able to prove that restored data is
identical to the original input under a wide range of scenarios.

Notes

• Container-level compression has been deprecated for new writes and
remains supported for read compatibility only.
• Folder-based datasets are validated end-to-end, but restoring full
directory trees with exact layout is not yet a first-class contract.
• Some integration scenarios overlap to maximize confidence and coverage.

coldkeep remains an experimental project and is not production ready.
The on-disk format and APIs may change before v1.0.

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This discussion was created from the release V0.5 — deterministic restore guarantees.