ZIM is the open single-file archive format Kiwix uses for offline content:
a fixed header, a MIME list, URL/title/cluster pointer lists, directory
entries, zstd-compressed or stored clusters, and a trailing MD5. The writer
lays out a mirror in two passes (assign positions, then emit bytes) and
derives the UUID from the content so packing is deterministic. The reader
random-accesses entries by namespace and url, follows redirects, and reads
xz clusters too so archives from other tooling open.
Cross-checked against an independent reader (gozim): header, MIME list,
namespaces, urls, dirents, and a non-last cluster's blob all read back
byte-for-byte.
kage renders every page in headless Chrome, snapshots the final
DOM, strips all JavaScript, and localises CSS, images, and fonts
so a site can be browsed offline as a plain folder of files.
The engine is split into small packages:
urlx deterministic URL to local-path mapping and scope rules
sanitize remove scripts, on* handlers, and javascript: URLs
asset rewrite HTML and CSS references, download assets
browser headless Chrome pool over the DevTools protocol
robots robots.txt matcher
clone the orchestrator: a polite resumable breadth-first crawl
The cli package wires a cobra and fang command surface with two
commands, clone and serve. Every pure package has table tests; the
browser and clone packages add Chrome-driven end-to-end tests that
skip when no browser is present or under -short.
CI runs gofmt, vet, build, race tests, golangci-lint, govulncheck,
and a tidy check on Linux and macOS. A goreleaser config fans one
tag out to archives, deb/rpm/apk, a Chromium-bundled GHCR image,
and the package managers. A tago docs site builds to Pages and
Cloudflare.
Duc-Tam Nguyen