Storage and vacuum — Ablative docs

Before you begin

Stop the service before planning a sweep. Both commands work on the data directory directly. stats can also report beside a live writer and marks that moving view, but vacuum refuses beside one. Know every place a reference to this store is kept outside the directory.

Measure first

Run the report. It deletes nothing.

haematite stats /var/lib/haematite/ward --json

Read the live and reclaimable figures. If reclaimable is a small share of the total, there is nothing to sweep.
Rehearse the sweep. The full pass runs and the deletion set is reported, with nothing removed.
```
haematite vacuum /var/lib/haematite/ward --dry-run
```

Sweep

haematite vacuum /var/lib/haematite/ward --sweep

This makes a new plan under the writer lock. It matches the dry run only if data and pin metadata have not changed. Policy blockers refuse before the first deletion; an I/O failure during unlinking can leave partial progress.

If the run is refused

The refusal names the blocker. Fix it and rehearse again. A new store without a metadata manifest also needs an explicit completeness attestation for both dry run and sweep. The examples without that flag demonstrate the refusal until a complete manifest exists. The --attest-metadata-complete flag is your word that the metadata is complete, for the one refusal that asks for it. Only pass it when it is true.

Check the history log

haematite history-check /var/lib/haematite/ward --show 20