Manifest

manifest.json is UTF-8 JSON written with two-space indentation and one trailing newline. The current public generic manifest uses format_version: 1.

Annotated example

{
  "artifact_name": "example",
  "created_with": "filepacks",
  "file_count": 1,
  "files": [
    {
      "hash": "64 lowercase hex SHA-256 digest",
      "path": "hello.txt",
      "size": 12
    }
  ],
  "format_version": 1,
  "payload_digest": "64 lowercase hex SHA-256 digest",
  "total_bytes": 12
}

What the fields mean

Field	Meaning	Used by
`artifact_name`	Human-readable name of the artifact	`pack`, `inspect`, `compare` results
`created_with`	Producer identity; must be `filepacks`	manifest validation
`file_count`	Number of payload files	`inspect`, `verify`
`files[]`	Sorted file descriptors	`verify`, `compare`
`format_version`	Manifest version; current public value is `1`	manifest validation
`payload_digest`	Digest over the sorted manifest file list	`verify`
`total_bytes`	Sum of payload file sizes	`inspect`, `verify`

Required fields

Field	Rule
`artifact_name`	non-empty string
`created_with`	must be `filepacks`
`file_count`	non-negative integer matching `files.length`
`files`	sorted payload file descriptors
`format_version`	must be `1`
`payload_digest`	SHA-256 digest over the sorted file list
`total_bytes`	sum of all file sizes

Each file descriptor contains:

Field	Rule
`path`	normalized payload-relative path
`size`	non-negative integer
`hash`	lowercase hex SHA-256 digest of exact payload bytes

How the CLI uses the manifest

inspect prints a summary derived from artifact_name, format_version, file_count, and total_bytes
verify checks that the payload files still match files[] and payload_digest
compare compares the files[] lists from two artifacts by path, size, and hash

Validation behavior

The current public validator rejects manifests when:

artifact_name is empty
created_with is not filepacks
format_version is not 1
file paths are invalid
file entries are duplicated
file_count does not match the files list
total_bytes does not match file sizes
payload_digest does not match the sorted file list

The current public OSS validator also rejects typed artifact fields such as:

schema_version
artifact_type

Those are explicitly outside the public v0 OSS surface.

Payload digest computation

The manifest payload digest is computed from the sorted file list using UTF-8 input lines in this form:

<path>\0<size>\0<hash>\n

The SHA-256 of the concatenated sequence is payload_digest.

Getting started

CLI

Artifacts

Guides

Annotated example

What the fields mean

Required fields

How the CLI uses the manifest

Validation behavior

Payload digest computation

​Annotated example

​What the fields mean

​Required fields

​How the CLI uses the manifest

​Validation behavior

​Payload digest computation

Annotated example

What the fields mean

Required fields

How the CLI uses the manifest

Validation behavior

Payload digest computation