Ross ROSS = Recommend OSS · open-source software intelligence for agents

electron/asar

Simple extensive tar-like archive format with indexing observed · 2026-08-28

github.com/electron/asar · TypeScript · MIT (permissive) observed · 2026-08-28

Health v2 · maintenance only

98/100

  • Activity 98
  • Release rhythm 98
  • Longevity 100
How is this computed?

round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10) — computed 2026-09-02. Adoption (stars, forks) is never an input.

  • gap_med: 19
  • age_days: 4363
  • days_rel: 15
  • days_push: 15
  • n_releases_24m: 20

Full methodology

Adoption not part of the score

2854 stars · 264 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-30, confidence not recorded

@electron/asar is a TypeScript library and CLI for the ASAR archive format, a tar-like format that concatenates files without compression while supporting random access via a JSON index. It is used primarily to package Electron applications, with deduplication of identical file contents and support for unpacking selected files to disk.

Use cases

  • package an electron app into an asar archive
  • extract files from an asar archive
  • list the contents of an asar file
  • create archives with random access without compression
  • reduce archive size by deduplicating identical files
  • exclude certain directories when packing an app
  • programmatically create asar archives from node

When to choose

  • you are packaging or distributing an Electron application
  • you need a simple uncompressed archive format with fast random access and an easy-to-parse JSON header
  • you want a CLI plus programmatic API for packing and extracting archives

When to avoid

  • you need compression, since asar stores files uncompressed like tar
  • you need a general-purpose archive format interoperable with standard tools like tar or zip
  • you need robust built-in error handling in the programmatic API

Facets

library · maturity active

compression file-system cli developer-tools developer-tools files cross-platform cli cross-platform asar archive-format electron-packaging tar-like random-access file-deduplication nodejs

2 sources

Member repositories

RepositoryRoleHealth v2
electron/asarmain98

For agents

markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="electron/asar")

Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00 · Report a problem