Status: IN
Tombstones are encoded on disk as a single `0xFF` byte in the value position; this is unambiguous because valid value-length fields are 4 bytes big-endian and cannot start with `0xFF` at realistic value sizes.
Source: entries/2026/05/28/sstable-and-compaction-sstable.md
TOMBSTONE_FLAG = 0xFF
# tombstone entries: key present, value = 0xFF marker