Module ops 

High-level operations for creating, modifying, and analyzing snapshots.

Contains complex logic for creating and manipulating snapshots.

See submodules for specific operations. High-level operations for Hexz snapshot files.

This module provides the orchestration layer that combines low-level format, storage, and algorithm primitives into complete end-to-end workflows for creating, reading, and modifying Hexz archives.

Architecture

The operations layer sits between command-line interfaces (CLI, Python) and core primitives (format, store, algo):

┌─────────────────────────────────┐
│  Interfaces (CLI, Python, FUSE) │
└────────────┬────────────────────┘
             │
┌────────────┴────────────┐
│  Operations (this mod)  │  High-level workflows
│  - pack: Create archives│
│  - write: Incremental   │
└────────────┬────────────┘
             │
┌────────────┴─────────────────────────┐
│  Core Primitives                     │
│  - format: Headers, indices          │
│  - store: Backends (file, S3, HTTP)  │
│  - algo: Compression, encryption     │
└──────────────────────────────────────┘

Available Operations

Archive Creation

• [pack]: Complete archive creation from disk/memory dumps
  • Chunking (fixed-size or CDC)
  • Compression (LZ4 or Zstandard)
  • Deduplication (BLAKE3 based)
  • Optional encryption (AES-256-GCM)
  • Dictionary training

Incremental Writing

• write: Write operations for overlay commits
  • Merge overlay deltas with base snapshot
  • Support for thin snapshots (reference parent)
  • Efficient delta encoding

Design Principles

1. Interface Independence: Operations are pure Rust functions, not CLI-specific
2. Composability: Operations can be chained and reused across interfaces
3. Progress Reporting: All long-running operations support progress callbacks
4. Error Handling: Consistent Result<T> returns with descriptive errors

Usage from Python

The operations in this module are exposed to Python via the hexz_loader extension:

from hexz import pack

# Create archive from Python
pack(
    disk="/path/to/disk.img",
    output="snapshot.hxz",
    compression="lz4",
    encrypt=False
)

Modules

inspect

Snapshot inspection without fully opening the file.

pack

High-level snapshot packing operations.

sign

Cryptographic signing and verification for snapshot files.

snapshot_writer

Unified snapshot write logic.

write

Low-level write operations for Hexz snapshots.