ver2

Auto-add content-hash cache-busting query params to HTML static file references. Zero dependencies.

Before:  <link href="/static/style.css?v=6">
After:   <link href="/static/style.css?v=39258372">

No more manually bumping ?v=6 to ?v=7. ver2 reads the actual file content, computes an MD5 hash, and updates the query param automatically. If the file hasn't changed, the hash stays the same.

Why

If you serve static files with vanilla HTML (no Webpack, no Vite) and your CDN caches aggressively (looking at you, Cloudflare), you need cache-busting. The existing npm packages are either abandoned, require special HTML attributes, or only rename files.

ver2 does one thing well: scan HTML, hash files, update ?v=.

Install

npm install -g ver2-cli

Or use directly with npx:

npx ver2-cli ./public

Usage

# Basic: scan all HTML files in a directory
ver2 ./public

# Preview changes without writing
ver2 ./public --dry-run

# URL prefix mapping (e.g. Fastify/Express static prefix)
ver2 ./public --strip /static/

# Custom hash length (default: 8)
ver2 ./public --length 12

# Custom query param name (default: v)
ver2 ./public --param hash

Prefix Mapping

If your HTML references /static/style.css but the file lives at ./public/style.css (common with Fastify/Express static serving), use --strip:

# Strips /static/ from URLs before looking up files
ver2 ./public --strip /static/

For advanced cases where the static directory differs from the target:

# /assets/main.js -> look in ./dist/assets/main.js
ver2 ./public --prefix /assets/ ./dist/assets

Output

ver2 v0.1.0

index.html
  /static/style.css  ?v=6 -> ?v=39258372
  /static/app.js     ?v=6 -> ?v=27362df0

dashboard.html
  /static/style.css  ?v=6 -> ?v=39258372  (unchanged)
  /static/dashboard.js  ?v=6 -> ?v=30be3214

2 files scanned, 3 updated, 1 unchanged

Programmatic API

import { ver2 } from 'ver2-cli'

const results = ver2('./public', {
  prefixMap: { '/static/': '.' },
  dryRun: false,
  hashLength: 8,
  paramName: 'v',
})

for (const file of results) {
  console.log(file.relativePath, file.updates.length, 'references updated')
}

CI / Deploy Integration

Add to your package.json:

{
  "scripts": {
    "cachebust": "ver2 ./public --strip /static/"
  }
}

Or use in a CI build command:

npm install && npx ver2-cli ./public --strip /static/

How It Works

1. Recursively finds all .html files in the target directory
2. Scans each HTML for src="..." and href="..." attributes
3. Skips external URLs (https://, //, data:, etc.)
4. Resolves each local reference to a file on disk
5. Computes MD5 hash of the file content (first 8 chars)
6. Adds ?v={hash} or replaces existing ?v= value
7. Only writes the file if something actually changed

Properties:

• Idempotent — running twice produces no changes on the second run
• Non-destructive — preserves all HTML formatting, only modifies the ?v= param
• Safe — missing files produce warnings, not crashes
• Fast — processes 100+ HTML files in under a second

Options

| Flag | Description | Default | |------|-------------|---------| | --dry-run | Preview changes without writing | false | | --strip <prefix> | Strip URL prefix before resolving | — | | --prefix <url> <dir> | Map URL prefix to directory | — | | --param <name> | Query parameter name | v | | --length <n> | Hash length in characters | 8 | | --ext <list> | File extensions to scan (comma-separated) | .html | | --verbose | Show detailed output | false |

Supported File Types

ver2 hashes references to these static file types:

.js .css .png .jpg .jpeg .gif .svg .ico .webp .avif .woff .woff2 .ttf .eot .mp3 .mp4 .webm

Requirements

• Node.js >= 18
• Zero dependencies (uses only Node built-ins)

License

MIT