This is the official repository of the W3C Portable Web Content Format Community Group.
This repository hosts Community Group reports, issues, proposals, meeting notes, status updates, and publication-oriented versions of the specification. Primary project development lives at the PortableWeb GitHub organization:
Main project: github.com/portableweb
AI-assisted tools can now generate high-quality interactive web content — games, presentations, simulations, educational materials — in minutes. This has created a massive and growing category of ephemeral web applications that need to be shared and used immediately across devices and platforms, without a traditional server for distribution, without association with a web origin, and without being confined to a web browser.
No existing format treats interactive web content as a portable, self-contained, immediately runnable unit. PDF loses interactivity. EPUB3 is constrained to a document and book model — its JavaScript support is an enhancement to a reading experience, not a general-purpose runtime. Web Bundles never achieved broad implementation and was designed as a network transport optimization, not a portable execution environment. The Web Application Manifest describes server-hosted apps and requires a live web origin. None of these addresses the need for content that has no server, no origin, and no installation — content that should exist, run, and be shared as a single portable file, across all platforms, entirely offline.
The mission of this group is to develop an open specification for a self-contained portable web content format that can be instantly shared and run on any platform — desktop, mobile, or offline — without a server, app store, or deployment pipeline. The format is content-model agnostic, equally supporting books, games, presentations, educational simulations, 3D experiences, scientific models, and collaborative applications.
- Container and packaging format
- Manifest schema for capability and permission declaration
- Viewer conformance requirements and security sandboxing model
- Storage model — per-bundle isolated storage specification, defining how packaged content can persist state locally, how storage is scoped and sandboxed to the bundle, and guidelines for storage portability across viewer implementations
- Inter-bundle communication model — a permission-gated channel specification enabling bundles to communicate locally via Bluetooth, WiFi Direct, or local network, making offline multiplayer, peer-to-peer, and collaborative interactive experiences possible without any server infrastructure
- Viewer conformance test suite
- Non-normative implementation guide for content creators, AI tools, and viewer developers
PortableWeb (.pweb) is an open file format for self-contained, sandboxed, interactive documents. A .pweb file packages HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and media into a single archive, opened by a compatible viewer in its own window, sandboxed from the host system.
Think of it as: like PDF, but interactive. Like a webpage, but a file you own.
PortableWeb uses two GitHub spaces with complementary purposes.
PortableWeb project organization — github.com/portableweb
This is the primary project space for PortableWeb. It hosts the main specification work, sample viewers, validation tools, packaging utilities, examples, demos, and other implementation-oriented project resources.
W3C Community Group repository — github.com/w3c-cg/portableweb
This repository hosts a Community Group copy or publication-oriented version of the specification, along with Community Group reports, issues, proposals, meeting notes, and standards-track discussion related to PortableWeb.
This separation is intentional. The PortableWeb GitHub organization remains the primary home for project and specification development, while the W3C Community Group repository provides a community-facing space for review, discussion, reporting, and W3C Community Group publication workflows.
| Resource | URL |
|---|---|
| Main project | https://github.com/portableweb |
| Project website | https://portableweb.org |
| IETF Internet-Draft | https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-selvaraj-portableweb-format-01.txt |
| Published spec (this repo) | https://w3c-cg.github.io/portableweb/ |
| W3C CG page | https://www.w3.org/community/portableweb/ |
spec/ Published spec drafts (rendered via GitHub Pages)
status/ Periodic status updates from the editors
meetings/ CG meeting agendas and notes
Anyone can read the spec and open issues. To make substantive contributions (pull requests), you must join the W3C Community Group and agree to the W3C Community License Agreement (CLA).
- Join the CG: https://www.w3.org/community/portableweb/
- Spec feedback and issues: open an issue in this repository
- Implementation contributions: open a PR in the relevant portableweb org repo
- General discussion: use GitHub Discussions in this repository
See CONTRIBUTING.md for full contribution guidelines.
Current spec version: 0.1 (Draft) IETF draft: draft-selvaraj-portableweb-format-01 See status/ for the latest editor updates.
Spec contributions are made under the W3C CLA. See LICENSE.md for details.