docs/command-surface.md

@@ -70,6 +70,35 @@ the zone and no index. Blob names are content hashes, so re-running skips
 whatever already landed, and `assemble` fails closed on an artifact with no
 index rather than publishing a manifest that is missing a hak.
 
+### What an emitted tree looks like
+
+`--out DIR` produces the same tree `emit` would upload, which makes it the way
+to check a zone by hand without touching one:
+
+```
+<artifact-sha>.nsym          binary index
+<artifact-sha>.nsym.json     the same index, readable
+data/sha1/a7/4a/a74aa84a...  one blob per resource, two-level fanout
+```
+
+A blob's name is the SHA-1 of the resource's **original** bytes, but the file on
+disk is not those bytes: each blob is wrapped in NWCompressedBuffer framing, a
+24-byte `NSYC` header followed by a zstd frame. Hashing the file directly will
+not match its name, which is the obvious
+first thing to try and the obvious first thing to be confused by. Strip the
+header first:
+
+```
+tail -c +25 <blob> | zstd -dc | sha1sum   # == the blob's filename
+```
+
+The header carries the uncompressed length as a little-endian `uint32` at offset
+12, so the decompressed size is checkable without decompressing. Compression is
+worth roughly a 4:1
+saving on hak content: a 250 MB hak emitted 2296 blobs totalling 59 MB on disk
+against 249 MB of resources, as recorded in the sidecar's `on_disk_bytes` and
+`total_bytes`.
+
 ## Hidden compatibility aliases
 
 Existing scripts may continue using these names indefinitely. They are accepted