Static Files

zphp serve serves static files automatically from the same directory as your PHP file. Keep private files outside this directory. The static-file handler has no general dotfile or secret-file exclusion, and symlinks can expose files outside the document root.

How it works

When a request comes in, zphp checks if the path maps to a file on disk in the document root (the directory containing your PHP entry point). If the file exists and isn't a .php file, it's served directly. Existing .php files execute directly; missing paths fall back to your PHP entry point.

project/
  app.php         <- entry point
  style.css       <- served as static file
  script.js       <- served as static file
  images/
    logo.png      <- served as static file

$ zphp serve project/app.php

• GET /style.css serves project/style.css
• GET /images/logo.png serves project/images/logo.png
• GET /anything-else executes project/app.php

Supported content types

zphp selects Content-Type by extension. Common mappings are listed below; HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and JSON also include charset=utf-8. Unknown extensions use application/octet-stream:

Caching

Over HTTP/1.1, static files are served with:

• ETag headers based on file size and modification time in seconds
• Cache-Control: public, max-age=3600 (1 hour)
• Automatic 304 Not Modified responses when the client sends a matching If-None-Match header

Compression

Over HTTP/1.1, compressible static files up to 1 MiB are gzip-compressed when the client advertises gzip support.

The HTTP/2 static-file path does not send ETags or Cache-Control, handle conditional requests, or apply gzip compression. Files larger than 10 MiB fall through to PHP handling on that path.