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Persistence and delivery

AetherFS sessions are working environments. Persistence is how you turn working state into something durable and reusable.

Temporary versus durable state​

The most important distinction is this:

  • A session is where work happens.
  • A persistent artifact is what you keep.

If you blur those concepts, workflows become hard to reason about.

Persistence options​

Checkpoints​

Use checkpoints for recoverability.

A checkpoint is appropriate when you want to:

  • Save progress.
  • Preserve a milestone.
  • Restore after a bad change.
  • Give reviewers a stable reference point.

Commits​

Use commits for durable outcomes.

A commit is appropriate when you want to:

  • Record a finalized state.
  • Promote work beyond a temporary session.
  • Hand off a stable result to another system or workflow.

Exports and sync operations​

Use exports or sync-style operations when the destination matters as much as the captured state.

Examples:

  • Downloading session content for external processing.
  • Importing a prepared archive.
  • Synchronizing content with another system over the public service surface.

A practical strategy for most users is:

  1. Use checkpoints freely during active work.
  2. Use approvals before high-impact persistence actions.
  3. Use commits only for states worth keeping.
  4. Delete or retire sessions that no longer need to remain live.

Delivery patterns​

Persist after review​

For user-facing products, this is usually the safest default:

  • Proposed work is created in a session.
  • Review metadata is attached.
  • A reviewer approves or rejects.
  • Only approved work is committed or exported.

Persist by milestone​

For long-running workflows, define milestone checkpoints and only produce durable commits at specific stages.

Persist by fork​

For exploratory workflows, keep the original session stable and let each fork represent a candidate outcome. Persist only the winning branch.

Questions to answer before designing your workflow​

  • What state must be recoverable?
  • What state must be durable?
  • Who is allowed to create a durable result?
  • What metadata must accompany a durable result?
  • When can temporary sessions be removed?

Answering these questions explicitly leads to simpler integrations and fewer accidental data-retention problems.