shorn

shorn turns a validation schema you already have into compact binary serialization. Pass a Zod, Valibot, or ArkType schema to encode and get bytes back — no schema language, no code generation, no second source of truth.

Field names and type tags stay out of the payload because the schema already provides them. The saving comes from the schema, not a compressor, so it costs no CPU: up to 6.2× faster to encode and 13.5× faster to decode than JSON bytes.

shorn is experimental alpha and runs in Node, Bun, Deno, browsers, and workers.

Installation

npm install @chichurita/shorn zod

ESM only, Node 20 or newer. require("@chichurita/shorn") works from Node 20.19 and 22.12 on; before that a CommonJS caller needs await import("@chichurita/shorn").

Encode a value

import { z } from "zod";
import { decode, encode } from "@chichurita/shorn";

const Person = z.object({
  name: z.string(),
  age: z.int().nonnegative(),
  sex: z.enum(["M", "F", "X"]),
});

const person = { name: "Grace", age: 45, sex: "F" } as const;

const bytes = encode(Person, person); // Uint8Array(8)
const back = decode(Person, bytes);   // typed and validated

The same record is 35 bytes of minified JSON. Validation runs on encode and again on decode, and equivalent schemas across validators produce the same bytes.

Store and queue safely

Bare payloads carry no wire identifier. Add a fingerprint to anything stored, queued, or read across deployments:

import { compile, fingerprinted } from "@chichurita/shorn";

const PersonWire = fingerprinted(compile(Person), { bytes: 4 });

const bytes = PersonWire.encode(person); // 4-byte fingerprint + payload
PersonWire.decode(bytes);                // rejects a different wire shape

A fingerprint identifies wire structure, not refinements. Keep old codecs while old payloads exist.

Use another validator

Pass a Zod 4.2+ schema or an ArkType 2.1.28+ type directly. For Valibot 1.x, pass toStandardJsonSchema(schema) as the trailing argument. shorn reads validation through Standard Schema and structure through Standard JSON Schema.

Scope

shorn covers strings, booleans, integers, numbers, literals, enums, nullable values, arrays, tuples, records, unions — discriminated, or with no two branches sharing a JSON type — recursive schemas, dynamic values (z.any()), and objects — closed or open, with optional fields. It does not support unions whose branches overlap, streaming, or automatic schema evolution. Date, bigint, Map, and Set need an explicit wire representation.

Documentation

See getting started and the API reference for the complete workflow. The docs also cover the byte layout, supported types, rejected shapes, fingerprinting, and performance.

MIT licensed.