The directories do follow files, but are listed in parent child order. Fixing this could be as simple as calling reverse() on the list of directories...

I think I'd be happier if the order was explicit.

(In reply to comment #2)
> I think I'd be happier if the order was explicit.

Well, it is in that the list of directories is generated whilst walking the directory tree depth first from the root.

However I can implement this such that the list is first explicitly sorted by length and then reversed, to ensure that the list children (longer entries) are at the top?

Pushed a fix: 62fe6dc755d83a4d394cb8a3751fc6172715ee37

sstate: list directories in child first order in the manifest file
The directory list in the manifest file needs to be sorted such that child
directories are deleted first. Fortunately as the list is generated by walking