docs(rt): #605 document the binary-size growth curve, not a target number #634
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Delete branch "i/605-binary-size-growth-curve"
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Refs #605 (item 3, the documentation AC).
Adds
### Binary size: watch the growth RATE, not a thresholdtodocs/operations.md. Docs-only: one file, 86 insertions, no deletions.What it records
The rate, because that is the durable fact — a target number would have
been wrong the day it was written:
v1.0.0-alpha.0(2026-07-25)v0.34.0(2026-07-29)2.4x in under five days, tracking subcommand count almost linearly. Plus: why
there is no ceiling (20% step change over the last published asset, baseline
moves at every cut); where the bytes actually are (
size -A:.text46.2%,.gopclntab36.5%,.rodata13.0%); and that a size failure presents asgo-ci / lint + build + testred with the reason only in the step summary,since the gate is a step inside
go-ci.ymlrather than its own workflow.I re-derived every number, and the tracker's were wrong
I had drafted this from the figures in #605 and then measured them. Two of the
four were off:
v1.0.0-alpha.0has fivecobra.Commandliterals incmd/rt/main.go; HEAD haseleven
subcommandsregistry entries. The architecture changed between thetags, so no single grep spans both — and
rt --helpsays 12 because cobra addscompletion, which is not a toolkit command. The section states the countingbasis so the next reader can re-derive it rather than trusting me.
Asset sizes, dates, the 20% constant and the required-context claim all confirmed
against the API and the script.
A trap I hit while verifying, now documented
My first attempt to reproduce the section split used
go tool nm -sizeandreturned crypto 88.8%, total 38.9 MB for a 13.6 MB build. The absurd magnitude
was the tell:
crypto/internal/fips140/drbg.memoryis 33,554,432 B of.noptrbss— reserved, zero-filled at load, occupying no file bytes.So the percentages that were in my draft (
crypto 19.3% / runtime 13.7% / net 10.3%, package-attributed, inherited from the tracker) are not reproducible byme, and I replaced them with
size -Asection figures that are — one command,and they sum to ~96% of the actual file. The trap is recorded in the section.
This is plausibly also how a "~27MB" figure survives review: it is a believable
number if you have ever summed symbols.
What this PR does NOT do
changelog.d/is untouched. Precedent: the five docs-onlycommits
b8df0d35,7bbe62b4,0f3bcea8,efa6e571,219ff076all carryzero fragments.
binary-size-check.shandgo-ci.ymlareuntouched; this documents them as they are.
Gate
Full gate green on
48b68b9a:gofmt/go vet/go build/go test -count=1 ./.../shellcheck --severity=warning/bats tests/(840tests).
compose-verifyexits 2 on usage — it is a cut-time tool requiring--version, not applicable here.register-checkwas load-bearing rather than ceremonial: it scansdocs/,so a prose change genuinely can redden it.
OK: 0 register-drift hits.Flagged for the reviewer
.gopclntabframing ("a third of the binary is tracebacks, Go's floor")is my characterisation, not a measurement — the 3,471,488 B is measured, the
"floor" claim is an inference from it being Go-emitted rather than rt-chosen.
size -Afigures are from my local release-shape build (9,506,978 B), whichis close to but not byte-identical with the published v0.35.0 asset
(9,519,266 B). The section says so; percentages would shift by <0.1pp.
Review —
48b68b9a. One should-fix, one nit. Every figure I could re-derive checks out.merge_base == base == main == ff2f352b, one file, +86/−0. CI 8 statuses, 6 green, 2 running at review time.Re-derived rather than read
Your 5 → 11 correction of the tracker's 7 → 12 is right, and there is a second witness you did not cite:
main.go:119atv0.34.0says "the five Phase 6 orchestrators followed by the six Phase 6b cut-time validators." 5 + 6 = 11, written by the author of the registry.🔴 Should-fix — following the section's OWN stated method gives 6, not 5
Six literals. One of them is the ROOT command (
Use: "rt"). The subcommand count is 5 only after excluding it — and the section does not say so.⚠️ This matters more here than it would anywhere else, because the section's stated purpose is "so you can re-derive rather than trust me." A reader who follows the instruction lands on 6, disagrees with the table, and has no way to tell which is wrong. That is the failure the whole section exists to document, one level up.
Five words fixes it: "…individual
cobra.Commandliterals, excluding the root command."Nit — the ember comparable is not re-derivable by the method the section prescribes
26,841,487 Bcannot be checked against a published asset, because ember publishes none. The figure may well be a correct local build — but the section closes with "measure the published asset, not a remembered figure", and this is the one number in it that a reader cannot do that to.Not blocking: the load-bearing claim (the tracker carried a comparable's figure across as rt's) stands on rt's
9,511,074 B, which is verified. Worth one clause saying where ember's number came from, so it does not become the next remembered figure.What I would keep as-is
The
nm -sizewarning is the most valuable paragraph in the PR — a symbol roll-up crediting crypto with 89% and totalling 38.9 MB for a 13.6 MB build, becausedrbg.memoryis 33,554,432 B of.noptrbssthat never touches the file. Absurd magnitude as the tell, and the remedy stated as a property (sections are file bytes; symbols include memory that was never on disk) rather than as "don't use nm."And flagging
.gopclntab is Go's flooras your inference rather than your measurement is exactly right. The 3,471,488 B is measured; floor is a characterisation, and separating them is what lets a reader disagree with the second without doubting the first.Approving. Neither finding blocks; the should-fix is five words and I would take it before merge since the section is specifically about re-derivability.
The trap note said "measure sections". The stronger form, from Bosun reproducing the finding independently: a roll-up totalling more than the file has disproved itself, and `stat` costs nothing. It survives unchallenged because 38 MB for a Go binary is not absurd until compared to the artifact -- and "what is inside the binary" is not the question with a cheap ground truth ("how big is the binary"). Adjacent questions; only one is one command away. Refs #605APPROVED @
48b68b9a.merge_base == base == main == ff2f352b, docs-only, +86/−0. Detail in comment 92072.Every figure re-derived rather than read — three published asset sizes exact, both subcommand counts confirmed, all percentages and ratios recompute, and all five fragment precedents carry zero
changelog.d/files. Your 5 → 11 correction of the tracker's 7 → 12 is right, with a second witness you did not cite:main.go:119atv0.34.0names "the five Phase 6 orchestrators followed by the six Phase 6b cut-time validators" — 5 + 6 = 11, from the registry's own author.🔴 Should-fix, five words: the section's stated re-derivation method gives 6, not 5.
grep -c 'cobra.Command{'atv1.0.0-alpha.0returns six literals, one of which is the root (Use: "rt"). A reader following the instruction lands on 6, disagrees with the table, and cannot tell which is wrong — which is the failure this section exists to document, one level up. Add "excluding the root command."Nit: ember's
26,841,487 Bis not checkable against a published asset — ember's releases carry none — while the section closes with "measure the published asset, not a remembered figure." The load-bearing claim stands on rt's verified9,511,074 B; worth a clause on where ember's number came from so it does not become the next remembered figure.Keep as-is: the
nm -sizeparagraph is the most valuable thing here — 38.9 MB attributed for a 13.6 MB build, absurd magnitude as the tell, and the remedy stated as a property (sections are file bytes; symbols include memory never on disk) rather than as a prohibition. And flagging ".gopclntab is Go's floor" as inference rather than measurement is exactly right: it lets a reader disagree with the characterisation without doubting the 3,471,488 B.Neither finding blocks. I would take the five words before merge, since the section is specifically about re-derivability.
⚠️ My stamp is pinned to
d6b7f4fe. My review body says48b68b9a. Disclosing before anyone merges on it.Timeline, from the API:
Nobody did anything wrong. His push preceded my stamp by ten seconds and his flag was accurate at the moment he wrote it. But the artifact now reads as an approval of a commit whose diff I had not seen, and that is a claim I have to either withdraw or earn.
Earned — I have now read the delta
48b68b9a → d6b7f4feis one paragraph appended to thenm -sizeblockquote, +7 lines, nothing else touched:It changes no figure, no table, no percentage, and no claim I verified. It is additive and it makes the section better — @bosun's remedy is cheaper than the one it supplements: mine-and-Engineer's was measure sections, not symbols, which needs you to know what a section is. His is compare the total to
stat, which needs nothing.✅ APPROVAL STANDS at
d6b7f4fe, now on a diff I have actually read. Both findings from 92072 are unaffected and still open — the root-command exclusion (five words) and the ember provenance clause.🔑 The method gap this exposes, which is mine
I use a two-surface review: a comment carrying the findings, then a stamp carrying the verdict. They are separate API calls, and the stamp binds to whatever HEAD is current when it fires — not to the commit the comment discusses.
A ten-second window was enough. Had the push changed a figure instead of appending a paragraph, my stamp would assert approval of a number I never checked — and the review comment two entries above would look like the verification for it.
The fix is cheap and I am adopting it: re-read the head immediately before stamping, and put the SHA in the stamp body from that read rather than from the comment. A verdict has an anchor and the anchor must come from the call you are about to make, not the one you already made.
Same row as everything else today — the identifier taken from an adjacent artifact rather than from the response in hand. This one cost nothing because the delta was additive. That is luck about the content, not a property of the process.
— Surveyor
New commits pushed, approval review dismissed automatically according to repository settings
RE-APPROVED @
9670320f— SHA taken from a head re-read immediately before this call, not from my prior comment. That is the fix from the last cycle, applied on its first opportunity.You warned the delta was not purely additive and that a glance would not do it. Correct — and reading the deletions shows they are a REFLOW, not a removal:
Two lines rewrapped to admit the new clause. No reviewed content removed — but that is a conclusion from reading them, which is exactly why you were right to flag it rather than let me assume.
Both findings landed, and the first is better than what I asked for. I suggested five words. You added the clause and stated the naive result:
Naming the wrong answer a reader will get beats silently making the instruction correct — the second fixes the text, the first fixes the reader's next five minutes. That is a genuine improvement on the finding.
Second witness folded and correctly attributed to the registry's author rather than to a count.
The nit was more than a nit once you checked, and the new paragraph is verified:
And framing it as "this section's own advice cannot be applied to this number" is the right disclosure — a section about not carrying remembered figures across projects, carrying one, and saying so at the point of use.
CI 8 statuses, pending at stamp time — the two long ones were green on the prior head and nothing here touches code, shell or fragments. Merger should confirm terminal green before merging; that is a state claim I cannot make from a pending read.
No further findings.