OCI Image Spec v1.1.1 / four native manifests / bounded replay
Same filesystem.
Different past.
Flattening tells you what files survive. It does not tell you which layers added, replaced, grouped, or deleted them. This lab keeps both answers available.
rootfs(A) = rootfs(B)layers(A) ≠ layers(B)manifest(A) ≠ manifest(B)What the result is useful for
Use rootfs identity for final-state equality. Use manifest and layer identity when provenance, transfer, review scope, or hidden mutations matter.
The same flattened bytes can justify deduplication without justifying the claim that two images have the same ancestry.
Interactive evidence
One final rootfs, several recorded routes
Select a verified pair. Every view is projected from the immutable, SHA-256-pinned case artifact.
Layer timeline
Different ancestry converges after flattening
......Identity regime comparison
“Same” depends on the question
Green means equal under that exact rule; orange means the native or derived identities differ.
Deleted / hidden history
Flattening can erase evidence from the present state
Historical Load / declared finite space
How much extra history did the observed route carry?
This number is always relative to a target, candidate space, admissibility rule, and cost function. Change the cost function and the honest answer changes.
......
Candidate costs
Evidence boundary
What was verified - and what was deliberately not claimed
Every manifest, config, and uncompressed tar layer is checked against its OCI descriptor. Filesystem states and Historical Load are derived projections over a deliberately tiny fixture profile.
- Whiteouts delete lower-layer files and never appear as final files.
- Native descriptor order stays distinct from derived state equality.
- The reversed-order control has no native manifest and remains counterfactual.
- This evaluator is not a registry client, image signature verifier, or general container runtime.