CodeVetter · Repo Unpack · Feature catalog
colinhacks/zod
The primary user-facing product is a schema construction and validation API, offered in fluent classic and smaller functional mini forms. It supports primitive, structured, recursive, transforming, asynchronous, and bidirectional schemas, with both throwing and result-oriented execution APIs. AOT compilation and JSON Schema interoperability extend the runtime beyond ordinary interpretation. The repository's second user-facing surface is zod.dev, which exposes documentation, blog, search, generated social cards, RSS, and machine-readable LLM documentation endpoints.
- Every classic schema exposes `parse`, `safeParse`, async variants, boolean `validate` methods, forward decode methods, backward encode methods, and safe async codec variants.
- The schema catalog covers primitives and special values plus arrays, objects, records, tuples, unions, XOR unions, discriminated unions, intersections, maps, sets, enums, literals, files, promises, functions, lazy recursion, and custom schemas.
- Built-in string validators include email, GUID and versioned UUIDs, URL and HTTP URL, emoji, NanoID, CUID/CUID2, ULID, XID, KSUID, IP and CIDR forms, MAC, Base64, E.164, credit card, IBAN, JWT, hostname, hex, currency codes, and hashes.
- Object schemas support strip-by-default, strict, loose, and catchall modes, plus shape access, `keyof`, extension, picking, omission, partialization, requiredness, and deep-partial helpers.
- Composable wrappers cover refinements, super-refinements, overwrites, optional/exact-optional/nonoptional, nullable/nullish, defaults, prefaults, catch values, arrays, unions, intersections, transforms, pipes, branding, readonly output, and metadata.
- Codecs are bidirectional pipes with explicit decode and encode callbacks; `invertCodec` swaps their input/output schemas and forward/reverse transforms.
- Function schemas can wrap implementations so arguments and return values are parsed synchronously or asynchronously at each call boundary.
- `toJSONSchema` supports single schemas and registries, input/output views, draft 4, draft 7, draft 2020-12, OpenAPI 3.0, cycle and reuse policies, custom processors, overrides, external registries, and configurable handling of unrepresentable types.
- `fromJSONSchema` converts boolean or object JSON Schemas back into Zod, recognizes composition, object, array, string, numeric, metadata, content, and OpenAPI keywords, and resolves local `$defs` or `definitions` references.
- Schemas implement Standard Schema validation and Standard JSON Schema input/output conversion, allowing library-agnostic consumers to infer types, validate values, and request JSON Schema.
- `z.compile(schema)` creates a compiled clone, `withParser` accepts an externally generated parser, and importing `zod/compile` enables lazy global compilation for subsequently constructed schemas.
- Zod Mini reuses the same core schema implementations but exposes a smaller base instance API centered on functional factories and free parsing functions rather than the classic chain-heavy method surface.
- The documentation site serves static catch-all docs pages, blog pages, local search, `/llms.txt`, `/llms-full.txt`, `/blog/rss.xml`, and dynamic Open Graph images.
