Installation

shorn has one dependency, @standard-schema/spec, which is types-only.

npm install shorn zod
# or
npm install shorn arktype
# or
npm install shorn valibot @valibot/to-json-schema

shorn is ESM-only and has no Node built-ins. Its neutral platform target runs unchanged in browsers, workers, Bun, and Deno.

Which validator needs what

shorn uses Standard Schema for validation and Standard JSON Schema for structure. Some validators provide both interfaces on one object; others need an extra converter.

Validator	Version	Extra package	Call style
Zod	4.2+	none	encode(Person, value)
ArkType	2.1.28+	none	encode(Person, value)
Valibot	1.x	@valibot/to-json-schema	encode(Person, value, { structure })

Any other validator that implements both interfaces works without an adapter.

Requirements

• Node 22+, or any runtime with TextEncoder, DataView, and Uint8Array.
• TypeScript 5.x for typed results — decode returns your schema’s type instead of unknown.
• ESM. There is no CommonJS build.

Verify

const Person = z.object({ name: z.string(), age: z.int().nonnegative() });
const bytes = encode(Person, { name: "Ada", age: 36 });

bytes.length;          // 5
decode(Person, bytes); // { name: "Ada", age: 36 }

An EncodeError here means the schema uses an unsupported shape. Rejected Shapes lists each unsupported shape and what to use instead.