---
title: Deterministic artifacts
description: Make generated pages and packaged assets inspectable, repeatable, and safe to publish.
language: en
margo:
  actions:
    markdown: true
    pdf: true
---

# Deterministic artifacts

Margo treats a publication as a set of inspectable artifacts rather than an
opaque side effect. Site builds sort routes, validate references, package local
assets, and emit a manifest containing exact artifact digests.

## Inspect the result

```sh
margo site ./content --output-dir ./dist --assets local --diagnostics json
cat ./dist/margo-manifest.json
```

The manifest records the site identity, layout identity, route mappings, and
the digest of each generated artifact. A repeated build from the same inputs
can therefore be compared byte-for-byte.

## Local means local

```mermaid
flowchart LR
    source[Source Markdown + vendored assets] --> html[Generated HTML]
    source --> runtime[Generated runtime assets]
    source --> manifest[margo-manifest.json]
```

This showcase uses `offline: true` and `assets: local`. Its Goshtoso shell CSS,
JavaScript, brand artwork, Margo dependencies, and social metadata are staged
into the output instead of being fetched by the generated pages.

## Boundaries stay visible

Deterministic artifacts are evidence of a successful local build. They do not
silently imply that a provider deployment, release, or publication happened;
those lifecycle actions remain outside the builder.