skippable-frame · shipping · also Zstandard skippable frame

Skippable frame (Zstandard)

A Zstandard skippable frame carries length-delimited user metadata that the standard decompression path skips.

Application-specific readers may interpret this metadata even though the codec does not return it as decoded payload. [1]

In Hesela's synthetic CLI experiment, changing a skippable generation label preserved the decoded bytes and their SHA-256. The whole stored-stream hash changed. This demonstrates a verification-scope gap, not a hash collision or a codec defect. [2]

Relations

related: zstandard, checksum, backup-manifest, cryptographic-hash

Citations

RFC 8878, section 3.1.2: Skippable Frames (accessed 2026-10-17)
Hesela: Compressed archives, dictionary dependencies and validation coverage (accessed 2026-10-17)

Sources & caveats

Format definition from RFC 8878; the linked single-build synthetic observation does not evaluate seek-table validation or application-specific metadata authentication.

JSON: /data/terms/skippable-frame.json

Published by Hesela team · Updated 2026-10-17

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Cite this page

Hesela team. Skippable frame (Zstandard). Hesela. 2026-10-17. https://hesela.dev/terms/skippable-frame/