Removing originals

By default, astro-dist-compress keeps the original source file next to the files it generates — the build output only grows.

distCompress({ removeOriginal: true });

Setting this globally (or per-rule, via CompressRule.removeOriginal, which takes priority) deletes the original once its outputs exist — but only for images whose rule produced a fallback: true output. This guard exists on purpose: deleting the only remaining reference to an image whose HTML wasn't rewritten (or that a rule left with no fallback) would leave a broken <img src> behind.

When originals are actually removed

rewriteHtml	rule has fallback: true output	original removed?
true (default)	yes	✅ — HTML is repointed at the fallback output before/around removal
true	no	❌ — nothing to point <img src> at instead
false	yes	✅ — the fallback file exists on disk, you're responsible for referencing it
false	no	❌

In practice: as long as fallback generation is enabled (the default), every rule ends up with a fallback: true output, so removeOriginal: true behaves as "keep only the converted formats" project-wide.

Per-rule override

rules: [
  {
    name: "hero -> avif (drop original)",
    match: inDir("assets/hero"),
    outputs: [{ format: "avif", fallback: true }],
    removeOriginal: true,
  },
  {
    name: "everything else, keep originals",
    match: hasFormat("png", "jpeg", "jpg"),
    outputs: [{ format: "webp", fallback: true }],
    removeOriginal: false,
  },
],