How bytes.io works

bytes.io doesn't host anything. It's a thin, static index over GitHub repos that follow two small conventions.

1. The index

Every known library is listed in index.json, kept in Bytes-Repository/repository. It's an array of single-key objects mapping a library name to its GitHub URL:

[
  { "mold": "https://github.com/Bytes-Repository/mold" },
  { "obsidian": "https://github.com/Bytes-Repository/obsidian" },
  { "tui": "https://github.com/Bytes-Repository/tui" },
  { "silver": "https://github.com/Bytes-Repository/silver" },
  { "nidus": "https://github.com/Bytes-Repository/nidus" }
]

This whole site fetches that file directly from GitHub at load time, so adding a library is a single pull request — no publish step, no build.

2. The manifest — bytes.hk

Each repo carries a bytes.hk file at its root, playing the role Cargo.toml plays for Rust — with its own block syntax:

@package {
  name: "mold"
  version: "0.4.2"
  authors: ["janekk"]
  license: "MIT"
  description: "Molding utilities for H#"
}

@deps {
  obsidian: "^1.2.0"
  silver: ">=0.3"
}

@build {
  entry: "src/main.h#"
  target: "native"
}

bytes.io fetches and parses this file client-side to render the package, dependency, and build panels on each library's page.

3. Language detection

The language bar on every library page starts from GitHub's own /languages API, then adds three extensions GitHub's linguist doesn't recognize by walking the repo's file tree:

H# — .h# H# Interface — .h#i Bytes Manifest — .hk

When H# is a repo's dominant language, its page shows the glossy H# badge instead of a plain legend dot.