Merge main

docs/content/docs/contracts.mdx

@@ -331,7 +331,7 @@ $ scriptc build graph.ts
 
 ## ProgramLifetime
 
-`ProgramLifetime` marks a class whose instances a program keeps until it exits, such as the nodes of a syntax tree, the symbols of a symbol table or interned types. scriptc then never reference counts, collects or frees instances of the class and of its subclasses: they are never freed, every retain and release on them compiles to nothing, and the cycle collector neither walks them nor needs to trace the objects that point to them. Node.js behavior is unchanged; only memory use differs, because an instance the program drops is never reclaimed.
+`ProgramLifetime` marks a class whose instances a program keeps until it exits, such as the nodes of a syntax tree, the symbols of a symbol table or interned types. scriptc then never reference counts, collects or frees instances of the class and of its subclasses: they are never freed, every retain and release on them compiles to nothing, and the cycle collector neither walks them nor needs to trace the objects that point to them. Node.js behavior is unchanged; only memory use differs, because an instance the program drops is never reclaimed. On Linux, the instances a worker thread creates are returned with the rest of its memory after it exits, unless the worker shared objects with other threads (see [cost](/docs/threads#cost)).
 
 ```ts:tree.ts
 import type { ProgramLifetime } from "@scriptc/types";

docs/content/docs/threads.mdx

@@ -234,6 +234,8 @@ Without `@scriptc/threads`, a scriptc executable also shares a message of untype
 
 Starting a worker thread takes tens of microseconds plus the worker's own module initialization, since every worker initializes the program's modules again, as in Node.js. A worker that exits frees its heap first, which takes time proportional to what it still holds. `SCRIPTC_WORKER_STATS=1` prints, as each worker exits, how long it took to start, to run its script and to exit.
 
+On Linux, a worker that exits without having shared an object it allocated with another thread returns all of its memory, including objects it never freed, such as `ProgramLifetime` instances, once no other worker thread is running. A worker shares objects when, for example, it sends a published value or frozen plain data, which other threads read by reference, or stores a value in an `InternTable`. The memory of a worker that shared stays allocated, as on other platforms. Set `SCR_SA_DISCARD=0` in the environment to keep the memory of every worker.
+
 `publish` visits each object of the graph once and marks it immortal, so publication takes time proportional to the graph. Published objects then cost nothing on later sends, and reference counting and the cycle collector skip them. Stores into the types a program publishes carry one extra load and branch.
 
 Threads that add to one shared collection of published values while they run can use an [`InternTable`](/docs/experimental#interntable) from `@scriptc/experimental`.