The list of packages that are being worked on persists across creation of board sysroot (including cros_sdk --replace). However the state of portage is out of sync after that, and unexpectedly modified by any call to cros_workon:
$ cros_workon-${BOARD} start arc-mesa
$ ./setup_board --board=${BOARD} --force
$ equery-${BOARD} w arc-mesa
/mnt/host/source/src/third_party/chromiumos-overlay/media-libs/arc-mesa/arc-mesa-12.1.0_pre-r33.ebuild
$ cros_workon --board=${BOARD} list
media-libs/arc-mesa
$ equery-${BOARD} w arc-mesa
/mnt/host/source/src/third_party/chromiumos-overlay/media-libs/arc-mesa/arc-mesa-9999.ebuild
We should make the state consistent when recreating the board sysroot.
Comment 1 by bugdroid1@chromium.org
, Jan 13 2017