Family

Three family packages produce or consume static file trees. None depends on another at runtime; they meet at file formats.

You want to…	Use
Build a site from pinned sources through a reproducible pipeline (stages, templates, plugins, checks, exports)	sitefile
Generate a tree of files from code, in JSX: scaffolding, codegen, append-only logs	fileable
Serve a built site from memory as a (Request) => Response handler, or pack a directory into one file	packfile

What works today

Checked on 2026-11-07 against the npm releases @johnhenry/sitefile 0.0.0, @johnhenry/fileable 0.1.1 and @johnhenry/packfile 0.2.0, and against each repository’s main, by building with both tools or by a test. “Fixed on main, in the next release” means the change is merged but not published yet: the npm versions above still behave as the rest of the row says.

From	To	How	Status
fileable, loose output	Sitefile	COPY ./generated/ /	Works
fileable, encode="zip"	Sitefile	IMPORT gen FROM ./site.zip AS tree, then COPY gen:/ /	Works, same output as loose
fileable, encode="wbn"	Sitefile	IMPORT … AS tree	Not yet (sitefile#141)
fileable tree, rendered during a build	Sitefile	a JavaScript TRANSFORM plugin calling fileable’s in-memory toFiles()	An example in Sitefile’s repository (examples/fileable/, on main; not part of the npm package). fileable is vendored into the plugin folder, and cmd, local src= and env:// are refused in the sandbox
fileable, encode="wbn"	packfile	fromArchive(), createRouter()	Works, with the file-name limits below; tested in fileable
Sitefile, EXPORT / AS wbn BASE <url>	packfile	fromWebBundle(buffer, { baseURL }), then createRouter()	Works; tested in both repositories (packfile reads a bundle written by the published 0.0.0)
Sitefile .wbn	packfile fromArchive()	with 0.0.0 / 0.2.0: gzip it, and export with BASE https://packfile.invalid/	Works with that workaround. Fixed on main, in the next release: EXPORT … AS wbn COMPRESSION gzip (or -o site.wbn.gz) writes the gzip (sitefile#143), and fromArchive() takes its base from a baseURL option or the bundle’s primary URL, so any BASE reads back (packfile#18)
Sitefile HEADER / REDIRECT	packfile createWebBundleRouter()	—	Not applied in 0.0.0: only the /_headers and /_redirects files are in the bundle. Fixed on main, in the next release: each response carries its HEADER values, and exact-path 301/302/303/307/308 REDIRECTs are 3xx responses with location (sitefile#144). Splats, 200 rewrites and 404 rules stay in /_redirects only
packfile toArchive()	Sitefile	IMPORT … AS tree	Not yet (sitefile#141)

fileable → Sitefile

COPY ./generated/ /

IMPORT gen FROM ./generated/site.zip AS tree
COPY gen:/ /

fileable’s encode="wbn" writes gzip around a Web Bundle, and IMPORT … AS tree reads only plain bundles, so it fails with E_TYPE (“gzip content is not a tar archive”). Use the directory or zip form until sitefile#141 lands.

To render a fileable tree inside a build instead, without a directory or zip in between, see the plugin example in Sitefile’s repository, examples/fileable/ (on main; it is an example, not part of the npm package). fileable’s cmd attribute, local src= paths and env:// fail there with E_PLUGIN, since a plugin cannot start processes, read outside its folder or see the environment.

Sitefile → packfile

EXPORT / AS wbn BASE https://site.example/ writes a plain b2 Web Bundle. packfile reads it back into exactly the exported files and serves it:

import { readFile } from 'node:fs/promises';
import { createRouter } from '@johnhenry/packfile';
import { fromWebBundle } from '@johnhenry/packfile/web-bundle';

const files = fromWebBundle(await readFile('site.wbn'), { baseURL: 'https://site.example/' });
const handler = createRouter(files);   // (Request | path) => Promise<Response>

• The baseURL must be the BASE you exported with. Entries under any other origin are skipped, so the wrong base reads back as an empty map, without an error.
• Pass a path string for non-ASCII paths. handler(new Request('https://site.example/docs/ünï/page.html')) returns 404 because the pathname isn’t percent-decoded; handler('/docs/ünï/page.html') works (packfile#20).
• The bundle’s entry at the bare base URL is skipped. Sitefile stores the index page there as well as at /index.html; read it as index.html.
• HEADER and REDIRECT rules aren’t applied by 0.0.0. They’re in the bundle as /_headers and /_redirects files, which packfile serves as ordinary files. Fixed on main, in the next release (sitefile#144): the bundle’s responses carry the HEADER values and exact-path REDIRECTs, which createWebBundleRouter(new wbn.Bundle(bytes), { baseURL }) serves. createRouter() serves a files map, so it still answers with the files only. Splat rules, 200 rewrites and 404 rules are only in /_redirects, for a host that reads it.

packfile’s own archive format (toArchive() / fromArchive()) is gzip around the same kind of bundle, under the fixed base URL https://packfile.invalid/. With the published versions, a Sitefile bundle exported with that BASE is read by fromArchive(bundle, { compressed: false }) as is, or by plain fromArchive() once gzipped; a bundle with any other BASE reads back as an empty map. Fixed on main, in the next release: Sitefile writes the gzip itself (EXPORT / AS wbn BASE <url> COMPRESSION gzip, or -o site.wbn.gz), and fromArchive() accepts { baseURL } or, without it, uses the origin of the bundle’s primary URL. Sitefile writes a primary URL only when the site has /index.html, and the derived base is the origin (https://site.example/), so a BASE with a path such as https://site.example/blog/ gives keys like blog/index.html unless you pass that baseURL.

Sitefile’s test/packfile-interop.test.ts covers the files and bytes, a served page with its MIME type, a 404, and the gzip relationship (on main, also the gzip export and the baked-in headers and redirects); packfile is a development dependency of Sitefile for that test only. packfile’s test/sitefile-fixture.test.mjs reads a bundle written by the published Sitefile 0.0.0.

fileable → packfile

fileable’s encode="wbn" output is packfile’s archive format, so fromArchive() and createRouter() read it directly. Limits:

• File names containing # make the wbn render throw, and names with ? or % are dropped when packfile reads the archive (fileable#20).
• An empty <Dir> isn’t kept: a Web Bundle has no directory entries.
• createRouter() works out Content-Type from its own MIME table rather than the one fileable wrote; they agree on the common extensions.

For fileable trees served without writing anything to disk, see servable’s mount.