Three levels, one strategy: compaction without the tuning PhD
LSM compaction is where storage engines breed complexity. Crowkis ships exactly one strategy across three levels — chosen for cache workloads, closed for configuration.
Mature LSM engines offer compaction styles the way menus offer wine: leveled, tiered, universal, FIFO, hybrid — each with a tuning surface that consumes operator careers. The flexibility exists because those engines serve every workload imaginable. A cache's workload isn't imaginable; it's known: write-heavy on misses, read-critical on hits, values that expire, sizes that stay modest.
So CrowkisDB ships one strategy over three levels — L0 absorbing memtable flushes, folding down through L1 and L2 — with thresholds chosen for that known shape. Read amplification stays bounded for the latency promise; write amplification stays sane for SSD longevity; TTL-expired entries die during folding, making expiry cleanup a side effect rather than a chore.
Reuse only when meaning, structure, confidence, and trust all agree.
The operator-facing consequence is an empty config section, deliberately. No compaction strategy to mischoose, no tuning guide to misread at 3 a.m., no foot-gun shaped like flexibility. The invariant list the compactor maintains is tested by the heaviest part of the suite instead of documented as your responsibility.
The bottom line
Configurability is a cost paid by users to cover a vendor's uncertainty. We weren't uncertain about the workload — Crowkis only has one — so we spent the certainty on your behalf.