v0.34.0 Release Recap

v0.34.0 is a non-breaking operations release that adds lifecycle index diffs for backup catalog review.

What Changed

Area	New in v0.34.0	Why it matters
Index diff	contextdb snapshot lifecycle index diff --old PATH --new PATH --report	Compares two backup catalogs before cleanup, promotion, or off-host audit
Drift signals	Added, removed, and changed bundle reporting	Makes it easy to spot missing backups or unexpected new backup bundles
Artifact checks	Size and SHA-256 delta reporting per changed bundle	Shows which indexed artifacts changed between catalog snapshots
Feature metadata	lifecycle-index-diff	Lets live deployments advertise index diff support through introspection

Compatibility

This release only adds a new lifecycle index diff command and feature metadata. Existing lifecycle indexes, lifecycle verification, retention reports, deletion plans, backup, restore, doctor, Norn, REST, GraphQL, and SDK behavior is unchanged.

Operator Flow

contextdb snapshot lifecycle index diff \
  --old "$OLD_BACKUP_DIR/contextdb-backups.index.json" \
  --new "$CONTEXTDB_BACKUP_DIR/contextdb-backups.index.json" \
  --report

The command exits zero when the catalogs match. Added bundles, removed bundles, retention decision changes, or artifact size/checksum changes exit non-zero and are included in the JSON report.

Verification

Release gates for this slice:

Gate	Status
go test -count=1 ./...	Passed
npm run docs:build	Passed
git diff --check	Passed