macOS tar destroys files on Linux: I validated it in my real Railway pipeline and documented the 3 cases nobody mentions

There's a Hacker News thread that resurfaced this week with 107 points about a 2024 article: tar on macOS creates archives that Linux can't extract cleanly. The community reacted the way it always does — "use GNU tar", "install gtar with Homebrew", "this has been known for years." And yeah, all of that is correct.

But there's something nobody's saying: the 3 specific scenarios where this actually breaks production are not the same as each other, and each one has a different fix. I learned this the hard way — a failed deploy at 11pm that took two hours to diagnose.…