web-widget-manifest

A file format for describing web widget applications.

The schema is published as a JSON Schema file, in schema.json. The schema is written in TypeScript (see schema.d.ts) and then compiled to JSON Schema.

Usage

Install:

npm i -D @web-widget/manifest

Require the JSON Schema:

const webWidgetManifestSchema = require('@web-widget/manifest');

Import the TypeScript types:

import * as schema from '@web-widget/manifest/schema';

Referencing manifests from npm packages

In order to allow tools to find npm packages with web widget application manifests without having to download package tarballs, packages should have a "webWidget" field in their package.json that points to the manifest:

{
  "name": "example-package",
  "webWidget": "web-widget.json",
}

Schema Versioning

The schema has a schemaVersion field in the top-level object to facilitate evolution of the schema. The schema follows semver versioning, the current schema version is 1.0.0.

This version will not always match the npm package version, as some changes to the npm package might not have changes to the schema. We will publish a list of schema versions and their associated npm versions and git tags.

Motivation

Many tools need some machine-readable descriptions of web widget applications: IDEs, documentation viewers, linters, graphical design tools, etc.

There have been several efforts in this area, including:

• Custom Elements Manifest
• Web Application Manifest
• Packaged Web Apps (Widgets)
• Chrome Extensions: Manifest file format
• VS Code: Extension Manifest

This repository is an effort to bring together tool owners to standardize on a common specification for a description format.