curt-format API

The reference implementation ships as the zero-dependency npm package curt-format (TypeScript, MIT). Current release: 1.2.0 — the first npm release (1.0.0 and 1.1.0 were tagged in-repo but never published).

npm install curt-format

Constants

export const CURT_MAGIC = 'curtis-conversation';
export const CURT_VERSION = 1;

Types

export interface CurtMessage {
	id: string;
	role: 'user' | 'assistant' | 'system' | 'tool';
	content: string;
	/** Epoch milliseconds. */
	timestamp: number;
	/** Provider model id, recorded on assistant messages when known. */
	model?: string;
	/** Implementations may attach extra fields; readers ignore unknowns. */
	[key: string]: unknown;
}

export interface CurtConversation {
	id: string;
	title: string;
	/** Epoch milliseconds. */
	createdAt: number;
	/** Epoch milliseconds. */
	updatedAt: number;
	messages: CurtMessage[];
	[key: string]: unknown;
}

parseCurt

export function parseCurt(raw: string): CurtConversation | null;

Parse a .curt body. Returns null when the magic field, version, or conversation shape fails validation — a corrupted file is reported, never half-parsed (whole-file rejection, SPEC "Validation rules"). A single leading UTF-8 BOM is ignored. Unknown fields on the conversation and its messages are preserved for round-tripping; unknown top-level envelope fields are rebuilt on serialization and therefore not preserved (preservation is best-effort, never normative).

import { parseCurt } from 'curt-format';

const conversation = parseCurt(fileText);
if (conversation === null) {
	// invalid: reject whole-file
}

serializeCurt

export function serializeCurt(
	conversation: CurtConversation,
	generator?: string,
	extensions?: string[],
): string;

Serialize a conversation as a .curt file body (tab-indented JSON, version-1 envelope). generator is provenance in "writer-name@version" form; readers ignore it. extensions declares registry names (see the extension registry).

import { serializeCurt } from 'curt-format';

const body = serializeCurt(conversation, '[email protected]', ['images-inline']);

isCurtMessage / isCurtConversation

export function isCurtMessage(v: unknown): v is CurtMessage;
export function isCurtConversation(v: unknown): v is CurtConversation;

The spec's validation predicates as type guards. isCurtConversation is the exact predicate parseCurt applies to the conversation field; isCurtMessage is the per-message rule ("Each message in messages"). Exported so third-party validators share the canonical behavior instead of re-deriving it.

curtFilename

export function curtFilename(conversation: CurtConversation): string;

The recommended file name, "<YYYY-MM-DD> <slug> <suffix>.curt". It derives only from the immutable fields createdAt and id, so the name survives title edits and later updates. <date> is createdAt as a UTC date (1970-01-01 when not a finite timestamp); <slug> is the lowercased title joined on -, capped at 50 characters (untitled when nothing remains); <suffix> is the part of id after the last _, else the last 8 characters of id.

import { curtFilename } from 'curt-format';

curtFilename(conversation); // "2025-10-09 fixture-conversation 001.curt"

JSON Schema

For non-TypeScript validators, a non-normative draft-07 schema ships in the package — tested to agree with parseCurt:

curt-format/schema/curt-v1.schema.json

See Schema for a validate-your-file snippet.