GUIDES · 05

Create a data payload.

A data payload is a directory of files — fonts, datasets, word lists — pressed into a .tfs image with a manifest. No toolchain: imaging runs in-process inside the tfs CLI.

Note	This guide is part 2 of the Basic payloads tutorial. The blog chapter builds the fonts example step by step.

Lay out the directory.

The files as you want them mounted, plus one extra: the manifest, at __tpkg__/manifest.yaml inside the image.

acme-fonts/
├── __tpkg__/
│   └── manifest.yaml
├── AcmeSans-Regular.otf
├── AcmeSans-Bold.otf
└── LICENSE

Write the manifest.

schema_version: 1
kind: data
name: acme-fonts
version: 2.1.0
producer: {tool: tfs, tool_version: "0.2.5"}
created: "2026-08-01T00:00:00Z"
digest: {tree_hash: "…", blob_sha256: "…"}
signing: {state: unsigned}
encryption: {state: none}
mount_semantics: {suggested: /usr/share/fonts/acme}
capabilities: {exec: false, read: true}
platforms: universal

kind: data declares that nothing here executes; capabilities.exec: false makes that a fact the loader enforces, not a courtesy.
platforms: universal — one image serves every OS. Platform-split payloads name their triplets instead.
mount_semantics.suggested is a hint, not a rule — the consumer decides the mount point (see the mount rule below).
mkimage fills in the digests; signing stays unsigned until you sign — see the verify guide.

Image it.

$ tfs mkimage acme-fonts/ -o acme-fonts-2.1.0.tfs

The default image format is limnifs — a pure-Rust, content-addressed format; nothing to compile, no external tool to install, imaging happens in-process. --format dwarfs opts into the dwarfs writer explicitly; dwarfs stays a first-class read backend, so existing dwarfs images mount everywhere they always have.

Check the image.

$ tfs info --manifest acme-fonts-2.1.0.tfs
$ tfs ls acme-fonts-2.1.0.tfs
$ tfs ls -r -l acme-fonts-2.1.0.tfs

tfs info --manifest prints the manifest back as parsed — the fastest way to catch a YAML mistake. tfs ls lists the tree without extracting anything.

The mount rule.

A slice never decides where it lives. The consumer’s manifest declares the dependency in its requires — the payload, a version range, and the mount point — so one installed copy of acme-fonts can serve every application that mounts it, each at its own path.

Consumers attach your payload in two ways: their manifest’s requires (resolved from the store, shared machine-wide), or tebako press --image <path>:<mount> (carried inside their package). Either way, your image ships location-agnostic.

Ship it.

The image is the artifact. Publish it on your own releases with a registry index your users can add — the walkthrough is in Publish to your own registry.