diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 2c40c38..0c473f9 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -1552,11 +1552,13 @@ wallet-ask: bootstrap ## query the wallet server with your own question [Q="..."
 SHARD_URL ?= https://nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/arborist/clones/virtback/000.db
 BLOB_BASE ?=
 
-# BUCKET_URL is the root the multi-shard cloud-ask points at. Client GETs
-# $BUCKET_URL/clones/manifest.json and queries every listed shard. One
-# config var → entire corpus. Default = our DO Spaces public bucket with
-# genesis Wikipedia + russell.ballestrini.net.
-BUCKET_URL ?= https://nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/arborist
+# BUCKET_URL is the manifest the multi-shard cloud-ask points at. Client
+# GETs $BUCKET_URL (treated as a manifest URL if it ends in .json, else
+# appends `clones/manifest.json`) and queries every listed shard.
+# Default = sidecar-enabled manifest on DO Spaces: per-shard inverted-
+# index sidecar.bin where available (sub-second FTS) + bucket-direct
+# FTS5 fallback for shards still being indexed.
+BUCKET_URL ?= https://nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/arborist/clones/manifest-sidecar.json
 
 bootstrap-bucket: bootstrap ## install apsw (bucket-direct extra)
 	$(PIP) install 'apsw>=3.45'
diff --git a/arborist/wallet/_sidecar_build_runner.py b/arborist/wallet/_sidecar_build_runner.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7226cd3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/arborist/wallet/_sidecar_build_runner.py
@@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
+"""CLI-callable sidecar build runner.
+
+Tiny shim so shell scripts can do
+    python3 -m arborist.wallet._sidecar_build_runner SRC DST
+without inlining multiline Python that gets eaten by shell quoting.
+"""
+from __future__ import annotations
+
+import sys
+import time
+
+from arborist.wallet.sidecar import build_sidecar
+
+
+def main(src: str, dst: str) -> int:
+    t0 = time.time()
+    stats = build_sidecar(src, dst)
+    elapsed = time.time() - t0
+    print(
+        f"build_secs={elapsed:.1f} "
+        f"file_size_mb={stats['file_bytes']/1024**2:.1f} "
+        f"terms={stats['terms']} docs={stats['docs']}"
+    )
+    return 0
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    if len(sys.argv) != 3:
+        print("usage: python -m arborist.wallet._sidecar_build_runner SRC DST", file=sys.stderr)
+        sys.exit(2)
+    sys.exit(main(sys.argv[1], sys.argv[2]))