[Abdullahbinmushtaq]

Key Changes

• Bounded Snapshot Memory & Compaction (Slice A): Added paged, payload-free iter_index_entries() in SQLite and Redis backends so response payloads are never loaded during FAISS index rebuilds (tracemalloc peak overhead < 5 MiB). Added immediate local compaction threshold (orphan_ratio >= 0.25 or >= 2,048 stale vectors).
• Multi-Process Redis Qualification Stress (Slice B): Added tests/test_qualification_stress_v6.py covering sustained multi-worker 32 KiB write/delete/tag churn, singleflight leader SIGKILL takeover, Redis restart/data-loss fail-closed quarantine, and 5-cycle transient disconnect/reconnect.
• Examples Automation & Format Compatibility (Slice C): Created scripts/wheel_examples_v6.py automating all 7 examples/ scripts and README quickstart. Added tests/test_examples_and_migrations_v6.py testing legacy Format-1 rejection and Format-2 codec roundtrips (json-v1, openai-dict-v1, openai-sdk-v1).
• Reproducible Benchmarks & Cost Methodology (Slice D): Implemented evaluation/cost_model.py and evaluation/qualification_v6.py with explicit mathematical formulas for net request cost, net mean latency, and break-even hit rates.
• Release Automation & Runbook (Slice E): Bumped version to 0.6.0, authored scripts/verify_release_v6.py (verifying version sync, wheel cleanliness, SHA256SUMS, and benchmark hash provenance), hardened CI workflows, and documented the release checklist and rollback runbook in docs/release-process.md.