Web Asset Builder

Web Asset Builder minifies .css, .js, and .svg files, outputs files uncompressed and also compressed with brotli and gzip, and adds a hash to file names to facilitate cache-busting.

Getting Started

Create a new C# project and install the AdamBarclay.WebAssetBuilder nuget package.

Add your web asset files to the project.

By default Visual Studio will add the files with a Build Action of None. The Web Asset Builder will process files with a Build Action of None so don't change this setting.

When the project is built, the asset files will be processed and a file called AssetManifest.cs will be generated.

AssetManifest.cs

AssetManifest.cs contains a mapping between the original file name and the output file name. Some files optionally have a hash appended to the name to facilitate cache-busting.

The manifest will contain a mapping for all of the files even if the file name was not changed.

AssetManifest contains a single method:

    public static class AssetManifest
    {
        /// <summary>Maps the original file name of an asset to the transformed file name used for cache busting.</summary>
        /// <param name="originalFileName">The original file name of the asset.</param>
        /// <returns>The transformed file name of the asset.</returns>
        /// <exception cref="ArgumentNullException"><paramref name="originalFileName"/> is <see langword="null"/>.</exception>
        public static string File(string originalFileName)
    }

Parameters

These parameters can be overwritten in the project file, e.g.

    <PropertyGroup>
        <AssetOutputPath>../some-other-path</AssetOutputPath>
        <FileTypesToCompress>.html</FileTypesToCompress>
        <FileTypesToMangle>.css;.html</FileTypesToMangle>
    </PropertyGroup>

AssetOutputPath

The output location of the built files relative to the project file.

AssetOutputPath defaults to ../../artifacts/assets/.

FileTypesToCompress

A list of file extensions to compress with brotli and gzip. An uncompressed version is also output.

• Brotli files are put in /br
• Gzip files are put in /gzip
• Uncompressed files are put in /uncompressed
• File types not included in this list are put in /static

FileTypesToCompress defaults to .css;.js;.svg;.txt.

FileTypesToMangle

A list of file extensions which will have a hash of the uncompressed file contents appended to their file names.

e.g. style.css might become style-abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789.

FileTypesToMangle defaults to .css;.js.