diff --git a/RATIONALE.md b/RATIONALE.md
index 7bc05405..9580ea7e 100644
--- a/RATIONALE.md
+++ b/RATIONALE.md
@@ -931,10 +931,8 @@ Firstly, wasi-testsuite does not require the inode of dot-dot, possibly because
 the wasip2 adapter doesn't populate it (but we don't really know why).
 
 The only other reason to populate it would be to avoid wasi-libc's stat fanout
-when it is missing. However, the inode for dot-dot is not cached, and is also
-likely not possible to get on a pseudo file. Even if we could get it, we would
-have to use stat. In other words, pre-populating this would have the same cost
-as waiting for something to call stat instead.
+when it is missing. However, wasi-libc explicitly doesn't fan-out to lstat on
+the ".." entry on a zero ino.
 
 Fetching dot-dot's inode despite the above not only doesn't help wasi-libc, but
 it also hurts languages that don't use it, such as Go. These languages would
@@ -945,10 +943,70 @@ In summary, there are no significant upsides in attempting to pre-fetch
 dot-dot's inode, and there are downsides to doing it anyway.
 
 See
- * https://github.com/WebAssembly/wasi-libc/pull/345
+ * https://github.com/WebAssembly/wasi-libc/blob/bd950eb128bff337153de217b11270f948d04bb4/libc-bottom-half/cloudlibc/src/libc/dirent/readdir.c#L87-L94
  * https://github.com/WebAssembly/wasi-testsuite/blob/main/tests/rust/src/bin/fd_readdir.rs#L108
  * https://github.com/bytecodealliance/preview2-prototyping/blob/e4c04bcfbd11c42c27c28984948d501a3e168121/crates/wasi-preview1-component-adapter/src/lib.rs#L1037
 
+### Why don't we require inodes to be non-zero?
+
+We don't require a non-zero value for `Dirent.Ino` because doing so can prevent
+a real one from resolving later via `Stat_t.Ino`.
+
+We define `Ino` like `d_ino` in POSIX which doesn't special-case zero. It can
+be zero for a few reasons:
+
+* The file is not a regular file or directory.
+* The underlying filesystem does not support inodes. e.g. embed:fs
+* A directory doesn't include inodes, but a later stat can. e.g. Windows
+* The backend is based on wasi-filesystem (a.k.a wasip2), which has
+  `directory_entry.inode` optional, and might remove it entirely.
+
+There are other downsides to returning a zero inode in widely used compilers:
+
+* File equivalence utilities, like `os.SameFile` will not work.
+* wasi-libc's `wasip1` mode will call `lstat` and attempt to retrieve a
+  non-zero value (unless the entry is named "..").
+
+A new compiler may accidentally skip a `Dirent` with a zero `Ino` if emulating
+a non-POSIX function and re-using `Dirent.Ino` for `d_fileno`.
+
+* Linux `getdents` doesn't define `d_fileno` must be non-zero
+* BSD `getdirentries` is implementation specific. For example, OpenBSD will
+  return dirents with a zero `d_fileno`, but Darwin will skip them.
+
+The above shouldn't be a problem, even in the case of BSD, because `wasip1` is
+defined more in terms of `getdents` than `getdirentries`. The bottom half of
+either should treat `wasip1` (or any similar ABI such as wasix or wasip2) as a
+different operating system and either use different logic that doesn't skip, or
+synthesize a fake non-zero `d_fileno` when `d_ino` is zero.
+
+However, this has been a problem. Go's `syscall.ParseDirent` utility is shared
+for all `GOOS=unix`. For simplicity, this abstracts `direntIno` with data from
+`d_fileno` or `d_ino`, and drops if either are zero, even if `d_fileno` is the
+only field with zero explicitly defined. This led to a change to special case
+`GOOS=wasip1` as otherwise virtual files would be unconditionally skipped.
+
+In practice, this problem is rather unique due to so many compilers relying on
+wasi-libc, which tolerates a zero inode. For example, while issues were
+reported about the performance regression when wasi-libc began doing a fan-out
+on zero `Dirent.Ino`, no issues were reported about dirents being dropped as a
+result.
+
+In summary, rather than complicating implementation and forcing non-zero inodes
+for a rare case, we permit zero. We instead document this topic thoroughly, so
+that emerging compilers can re-use the research and reference it on conflict.
+We also document that `Ino` should be non-zero, so that users implementing that
+field will attempt to get it.
+
+See
+ * https://github.com/WebAssembly/wasi-filesystem/pull/81
+ * https://github.com/WebAssembly/wasi-libc/blob/bd950eb128bff337153de217b11270f948d04bb4/libc-bottom-half/cloudlibc/src/libc/dirent/readdir.c#L87-L94
+ * https://linux.die.net/man/3/getdents
+ * https://www.unix.com/man-page/osx/2/getdirentries/
+ * https://man.openbsd.org/OpenBSD-5.4/getdirentries.2
+ * https://github.com/golang/go/blob/go1.20/src/syscall/dirent.go#L60-L102
+ * https://go-review.googlesource.com/c/go/+/507915
+
 ## sys.Walltime and Nanotime
 
 The `sys` package has two function types, `Walltime` and `Nanotime` for real
diff --git a/imports/wasi_snapshot_preview1/fs.go b/imports/wasi_snapshot_preview1/fs.go
index efb1be63..c2d755b0 100644
--- a/imports/wasi_snapshot_preview1/fs.go
+++ b/imports/wasi_snapshot_preview1/fs.go
@@ -1018,7 +1018,7 @@ func writeDirents(buf []byte, dirents []fsapi.Dirent, d_next uint64, direntCount
 }
 
 // writeDirent writes DirentSize bytes
-func writeDirent(buf []byte, dNext uint64, ino uint64, dNamlen uint32, dType fs.FileMode) {
+func writeDirent(buf []byte, dNext uint64, ino fsapi.Ino, dNamlen uint32, dType fs.FileMode) {
 	le.PutUint64(buf, dNext)        // d_next
 	le.PutUint64(buf[8:], ino)      // d_ino
 	le.PutUint32(buf[16:], dNamlen) // d_namlen
diff --git a/internal/fsapi/dir.go b/internal/fsapi/dir.go
index 75f550cc..e70cc5c8 100644
--- a/internal/fsapi/dir.go
+++ b/internal/fsapi/dir.go
@@ -7,16 +7,38 @@ import (
 	"time"
 )
 
-// Dirent is an entry read from a directory.
+// Ino is the file serial number, or zero if unknown.
+//
+// The inode is used for a file equivalence, like os.SameFile, so any constant
+// value will interfere that.
+//
+// When zero is returned by File.Readdir, certain callers will fan-out to
+// File.Stat to retrieve a non-zero value. Callers using this for darwin's
+// definition of `getdirentries` conflate zero `d_fileno` with a deleted file
+// and skip the entry. See /RATIONALE.md for more on this.
+type Ino = uint64
+
+// FileType is fs.FileMode masked on fs.ModeType. For example, zero is a
+// regular file, fs.ModeDir is a directory and fs.ModeIrregular is unknown.
+//
+// Note: This is defined by Linux, not POSIX.
+type FileType = fs.FileMode
+
+// Dirent is an entry read from a directory via File.Readdir.
 //
 // # Notes
 //
 //   - This extends `dirent` defined in POSIX with some fields defined by
 //     Linux. See https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man3/readdir.3.html and
 //     https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/basedefs/dirent.h.html
+//   - This has a subset of fields defined in Stat_t. Notably, there is no
+//     field corresponding to Stat_t.Dev because that value will be constant
+//     for all files in a directory. To get the Dev value, call File.Stat on
+//     the directory File.Readdir was called on.
 type Dirent struct {
-	// Ino is the file serial number, or zero if not available.
-	Ino uint64
+	// Ino is the file serial number, or zero if not available. See Ino for
+	// more details including impact returning a zero value.
+	Ino Ino
 
 	// Name is the base name of the directory entry. Empty is invalid.
 	Name string
diff --git a/internal/fsapi/file.go b/internal/fsapi/file.go
index ef17fa64..8f68f35f 100644
--- a/internal/fsapi/file.go
+++ b/internal/fsapi/file.go
@@ -55,7 +55,7 @@ type File interface {
 	//
 	//   - Implementations should cache this result.
 	//   - This combined with Dev can implement os.SameFile.
-	Ino() (uint64, syscall.Errno)
+	Ino() (Ino, syscall.Errno)
 
 	// IsDir returns true if this file is a directory or an error there was an
 	// error retrieving this information.
diff --git a/internal/fsapi/stat.go b/internal/fsapi/stat.go
index bd5584c3..39f48a63 100644
--- a/internal/fsapi/stat.go
+++ b/internal/fsapi/stat.go
@@ -13,8 +13,9 @@ type Stat_t struct {
 	// Dev is the device ID of device containing the file.
 	Dev uint64
 
-	// Ino is the file serial number.
-	Ino uint64
+	// Ino is the file serial number, or zero if not available. See Ino for
+	// more details including impact returning a zero value.
+	Ino Ino
 
 	// Uid is the user ID that owns the file, or zero if unsupported.
 	// For example, this is unsupported on some virtual filesystems or windows.
diff --git a/internal/fsapi/unimplemented.go b/internal/fsapi/unimplemented.go
index d69f41fa..560c2f0f 100644
--- a/internal/fsapi/unimplemented.go
+++ b/internal/fsapi/unimplemented.go
@@ -97,7 +97,7 @@ func (UnimplementedFile) Dev() (uint64, syscall.Errno) {
 }
 
 // Ino implements File.Ino
-func (UnimplementedFile) Ino() (uint64, syscall.Errno) {
+func (UnimplementedFile) Ino() (Ino, syscall.Errno) {
 	return 0, 0
 }
 
diff --git a/internal/sys/fs.go b/internal/sys/fs.go
index 7d1c1056..2e0c04d3 100644
--- a/internal/sys/fs.go
+++ b/internal/sys/fs.go
@@ -139,7 +139,8 @@ func synthesizeDotEntries(f *FileEntry) ([]fsapi.Dirent, syscall.Errno) {
 	}
 	result := [2]fsapi.Dirent{}
 	result[0] = fsapi.Dirent{Name: ".", Ino: dotIno, Type: fs.ModeDir}
-	// See /RATIONALE.md for why we don't attempt to get an inode for ".."
+	// See /RATIONALE.md for why we don't attempt to get an inode for ".." and
+	// why in wasi-libc this won't fan-out either.
 	result[1] = fsapi.Dirent{Name: "..", Ino: 0, Type: fs.ModeDir}
 	return result[:], 0
 }
diff --git a/internal/sys/lazy.go b/internal/sys/lazy.go
index 024b855b..2fbbbd82 100644
--- a/internal/sys/lazy.go
+++ b/internal/sys/lazy.go
@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ func (r *lazyDir) Dev() (uint64, syscall.Errno) {
 }
 
 // Ino implements the same method as documented on fsapi.File
-func (r *lazyDir) Ino() (uint64, syscall.Errno) {
+func (r *lazyDir) Ino() (fsapi.Ino, syscall.Errno) {
 	if f, ok := r.file(); !ok {
 		return 0, syscall.EBADF
 	} else {
diff --git a/internal/sysfs/file.go b/internal/sysfs/file.go
index 74ef5170..bf31a610 100644
--- a/internal/sysfs/file.go
+++ b/internal/sysfs/file.go
@@ -124,7 +124,7 @@ type cachedStat struct {
 	dev uint64
 
 	// dev is the same as fsapi.Stat_t Ino.
-	ino uint64
+	ino fsapi.Ino
 
 	// isDir is fsapi.Stat_t Mode masked with fs.ModeDir
 	isDir bool
@@ -132,7 +132,7 @@ type cachedStat struct {
 
 // cachedStat returns the cacheable parts of fsapi.Stat_t or an error if they
 // couldn't be retrieved.
-func (f *fsFile) cachedStat() (dev, ino uint64, isDir bool, errno syscall.Errno) {
+func (f *fsFile) cachedStat() (dev uint64, ino fsapi.Ino, isDir bool, errno syscall.Errno) {
 	if f.cachedSt == nil {
 		if _, errno = f.Stat(); errno != 0 {
 			return
@@ -148,7 +148,7 @@ func (f *fsFile) Dev() (uint64, syscall.Errno) {
 }
 
 // Ino implements the same method as documented on fsapi.File
-func (f *fsFile) Ino() (uint64, syscall.Errno) {
+func (f *fsFile) Ino() (fsapi.Ino, syscall.Errno) {
 	_, ino, _, errno := f.cachedStat()
 	return ino, errno
 }
@@ -435,7 +435,7 @@ func readdir(f readdirFile, path string, n int) (dirents []fsapi.Dirent, errno s
 	dirents = make([]fsapi.Dirent, 0, len(fis))
 
 	// linux/darwin won't have to fan out to lstat, but windows will.
-	var ino uint64
+	var ino fsapi.Ino
 	for fi := range fis {
 		t := fis[fi]
 		if ino, errno = inoFromFileInfo(path, t); errno != 0 {
diff --git a/internal/sysfs/file_test.go b/internal/sysfs/file_test.go
index 269aef8c..6fba3b6c 100644
--- a/internal/sysfs/file_test.go
+++ b/internal/sysfs/file_test.go
@@ -151,7 +151,7 @@ func TestFileIno(t *testing.T) {
 	tests := []struct {
 		name        string
 		fs          fs.FS
-		expectedIno uint64
+		expectedIno fsapi.Ino
 	}{
 		{name: "os.DirFS", fs: dirFS, expectedIno: st.Ino},
 		{name: "embed.api.FS", fs: embedFS},
diff --git a/internal/sysfs/osfile.go b/internal/sysfs/osfile.go
index 2b15928e..fa31dc36 100644
--- a/internal/sysfs/osfile.go
+++ b/internal/sysfs/osfile.go
@@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ type osFile struct {
 
 // cachedStat returns the cacheable parts of fsapi.Stat_t or an error if they
 // couldn't be retrieved.
-func (f *osFile) cachedStat() (dev, ino uint64, isDir bool, errno syscall.Errno) {
+func (f *osFile) cachedStat() (dev uint64, ino fsapi.Ino, isDir bool, errno syscall.Errno) {
 	if f.cachedSt == nil {
 		if _, errno = f.Stat(); errno != 0 {
 			return
@@ -60,7 +60,7 @@ func (f *osFile) Dev() (uint64, syscall.Errno) {
 }
 
 // Ino implements the same method as documented on fsapi.File
-func (f *osFile) Ino() (uint64, syscall.Errno) {
+func (f *osFile) Ino() (fsapi.Ino, syscall.Errno) {
 	_, ino, _, errno := f.cachedStat()
 	return ino, errno
 }
diff --git a/internal/sysfs/readfs.go b/internal/sysfs/readfs.go
index 6457b991..125ad316 100644
--- a/internal/sysfs/readfs.go
+++ b/internal/sysfs/readfs.go
@@ -76,7 +76,7 @@ func (r *readFile) Dev() (uint64, syscall.Errno) {
 }
 
 // Ino implements the same method as documented on fsapi.File.
-func (r *readFile) Ino() (uint64, syscall.Errno) {
+func (r *readFile) Ino() (fsapi.Ino, syscall.Errno) {
 	return r.f.Ino()
 }
 
diff --git a/internal/sysfs/stat_bsd.go b/internal/sysfs/stat_bsd.go
index f0dc673f..481860bf 100644
--- a/internal/sysfs/stat_bsd.go
+++ b/internal/sysfs/stat_bsd.go
@@ -31,7 +31,7 @@ func statFile(f fs.File) (fsapi.Stat_t, syscall.Errno) {
 	return defaultStatFile(f)
 }
 
-func inoFromFileInfo(_ string, t fs.FileInfo) (ino uint64, err syscall.Errno) {
+func inoFromFileInfo(_ string, t fs.FileInfo) (ino fsapi.Ino, err syscall.Errno) {
 	if d, ok := t.Sys().(*syscall.Stat_t); ok {
 		ino = d.Ino
 	}
diff --git a/internal/sysfs/stat_linux.go b/internal/sysfs/stat_linux.go
index c1eeaabe..bd2a2d3d 100644
--- a/internal/sysfs/stat_linux.go
+++ b/internal/sysfs/stat_linux.go
@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ func statFile(f fs.File) (fsapi.Stat_t, syscall.Errno) {
 	return defaultStatFile(f)
 }
 
-func inoFromFileInfo(_ string, t fs.FileInfo) (ino uint64, err syscall.Errno) {
+func inoFromFileInfo(_ string, t fs.FileInfo) (ino fsapi.Ino, err syscall.Errno) {
 	if d, ok := t.Sys().(*syscall.Stat_t); ok {
 		ino = d.Ino
 	}
diff --git a/internal/sysfs/stat_unsupported.go b/internal/sysfs/stat_unsupported.go
index 5bdd062a..8e214c90 100644
--- a/internal/sysfs/stat_unsupported.go
+++ b/internal/sysfs/stat_unsupported.go
@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@ func statFile(f fs.File) (fsapi.Stat_t, syscall.Errno) {
 	return defaultStatFile(f)
 }
 
-func inoFromFileInfo(_ string, t fs.FileInfo) (ino uint64, err syscall.Errno) {
+func inoFromFileInfo(_ string, t fs.FileInfo) (ino fsapi.Ino, err syscall.Errno) {
 	return
 }
 
diff --git a/internal/sysfs/stat_windows.go b/internal/sysfs/stat_windows.go
index 2283ec0d..71bc7308 100644
--- a/internal/sysfs/stat_windows.go
+++ b/internal/sysfs/stat_windows.go
@@ -72,7 +72,7 @@ func statFile(f fs.File) (fsapi.Stat_t, syscall.Errno) {
 }
 
 // inoFromFileInfo uses stat to get the inode information of the file.
-func inoFromFileInfo(filePath string, t fs.FileInfo) (ino uint64, errno syscall.Errno) {
+func inoFromFileInfo(filePath string, t fs.FileInfo) (ino fsapi.Ino, errno syscall.Errno) {
 	if filePath == "" {
 		// This is a fs.File backed implementation which doesn't have access to
 		// the original file path.