Confiture: A Simple Package Manager for the Web

Confiture is a specification for how to organize and distribute software packages online. Think of it like a recipe or blueprint that anyone can follow to build their own app store or software repository on the web. Instead of inventing a new system from scratch, developers can follow this standard and know that their package format will work with tools built on the same spec.

The system works by storing packages as simple ZIP files alongside JSON metadata files—no complicated databases or servers needed. When someone wants to share software, they bundle it up with information about what it does, who made it, and what version it is, then upload it to a repository. The repository maintains an index file that lists all available packages, so tools can search through and install what users need. Each package includes not just the code itself but also optional installation and removal scripts that run before and after setup, and a checksum file so users can verify the download wasn't corrupted.

Someone managing a software platform—like a lightweight framework or a niche operating system—would use this to let their community share add-ons or extensions. A maintainer creates a repository, adds packages following the confiture structure, and anyone building a tool that understands this spec can then let their users browse and install those packages automatically. The README mentions that there's a companion utility project (confiture.utils) that helps you create and update packages without having to manually organize all the JSON and ZIP files yourself.

This is deliberately minimal and web-friendly: it avoids complex dependencies and relies only on JSON and ZIP, formats that are easy to work with across different programming languages and platforms. That simplicity is both the strength and the limitation—it's approachable for new projects but won't have all the advanced features of larger package ecosystems.