**Purpose**: Checkpoint stores (1) processed offsets (Kafka, files) and (2) state (aggregations, joins) for Structured Streaming. Enables exactly-once and failure recovery.
**Why Critical**: No checkpoint = no recovery. Restart = reprocess from start or lose state. Exactly-once impossible.
**Requirements**: Durable storage (DBFS, S3). Unique per query. Never delete.
**Scalability Trade-offs**: Checkpoint can grow; monitor....
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