If I understand correctly, the status file is not required to use unifyfs-stage. But the code checks whether -S (path to status file) is there, if not it will print out the help message and exit. However, neither the help message and the document says -S is mandatory to use unifyfs-stage.
https://github.com/LLNL/UnifyFS/blob/165772106e1b78a8960a95b940dbee14adfba956/util/unifyfs-stage/src/unifyfs-stage.c#L211-L214
If I understand correctly, the status file is not required to use unifyfs-stage. But the code checks whether -S (path to status file) is there, if not it will print out the help message and exit. However, neither the help message and the document says -S is mandatory to use unifyfs-stage.