`--release` resolves to ReleaseSafe here as a correctness decision: src/ carries over a thousand asserts that turn a detected inconsistency into a crash instead of a durable write, and ReleaseFast compiles every one of them away. The bench executables opted out of that on the grounds that "a benchmark must measure optimized code".

Optimized, yes - but it has to be the code users run, or the number describes a binary nobody executes. This matters more than a uniform constant would suggest, because the cost is not uniform: the same rationale block records `zit pack` at 599 ms fast against 15.2 s safe on one store. A measurement taken in the mode that strips the asserts cannot be compared against, or used to make a claim about, the shipped artifact.

`bench_zit` is the sharpest case - the serve benchmark spawns it as the real `zit` binary, so it stood in for production while being built unlike it. check-in: 30b7d5e766 user: dmestas tags: sub-manifest