fix(start): omit build paths from production manifests

[danieljvdm]

🎯 Changes

Production Start manifests embed absolute route source paths, so moving an unchanged project changes the emitted JavaScript. Remove those build-only paths after client chunk lookup, preserving the original route metadata for build and development use and leaving the general serializer unchanged.

Related to #4469; the absolute lookup paths were introduced in #4453.

✅ Checklist

• I have followed the steps in the Contributing guide.
• I have tested code changes locally with the relevant test commands, or tests do not apply to this pull request.
• I fully understand the code in this pull request, including any code generated with AI assistance.

🚀 Release Impact

• This change affects published code, and I have generated a changeset.
• This change is docs/CI/dev-only (no release).

Summary by CodeRabbit

• Bug Fixes

  • Production manifests no longer include build-only route file paths.
  • Identical builds now produce the same manifest regardless of the checkout directory used during the build.
  • Route assets, including preloads, scripts, and stylesheets, continue to be included as expected.

• Release

  • Published a patch release for the Start core plugin.

[danieljvdm]

Validated against main 8e164d28f9e9eb1a7301109230d7ece9817492a8 with the pinned Node 24.8.0 and pnpm 11.21.0 toolchain:

• The new regression calls the existing normalized-build, production-manifest builder, and serializer/deserializer at two checkout paths. It checks unchanged frozen source routes and exact emitted preloads, scripts, and CSS. Before the fix, those checks passed and the final serialized-output comparison failed on the absolute filePath values. The same test passes after the fix.
• The existing package checks passed: 541 tests across 34 files, all six TypeScript targets (5.6/5.7/5.8/5.9/6/7), and ESLint. These ran through the existing Nx graph, including the required dependency builds, using Vite+ as the command entry point.
• Existing serializer tests for shared asset identity and preserving explicitly supplied non-link fields remain unchanged and pass. This fix only removes paths from the builder's cloned production result.

The source and dependency inputs are unchanged since those checks. No performance improvement is claimed.

[coderabbitai]

No actionable comments were generated in the recent review. 🎉

ℹ️ Recent review info

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: Path: .coderabbit.yaml

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Advanced

Run ID: bf462fa5-58e3-4816-b235-89e4925abbde

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 8e164d2 and ed1ee30.

📒 Files selected for processing (3)

• .changeset/four-olives-design.md
• packages/start-plugin-core/src/start-manifest-plugin/manifestBuilder.ts
• packages/start-plugin-core/tests/start-manifest-plugin/manifestBuilder.test.ts

Included review availability: Your plan provides up to 10 included reviews per hour; 9 remain after this review.

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📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

The production Start manifest no longer includes build-only route file paths. A regression test confirms identical output across checkout paths, preserves frozen route inputs, and verifies emitted assets. A patch changeset documents the update.

Changes

Production manifest path pruning

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Manifest pruning and validation packages/start-plugin-core/src/start-manifest-plugin/manifestBuilder.ts, packages/start-plugin-core/tests/start-manifest-plugin/manifestBuilder.test.ts, .changeset/four-olives-design.md	buildStartManifest removes each route's filePath from the emitted manifest. Tests compare manifests from two checkout paths, verify route assets, and confirm frozen inputs remain unchanged. The changeset declares a patch release.

Priority: ⬇️ Low

Estimated code review effort: 2 (Simple) | ~10 minutes

Change: Bug fix

Merge Risk: ⚪ Minimal · up to ed1ee

The production manifest removes build-only checkout paths without affecting the assets used to render routes. No merge-blocking risk remains.

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 4 | ❌ 1

❌ Failed checks (1 warning)

Check name	Status	Explanation	Resolution
Docstring Coverage	⚠️ Warning	Docstring coverage is 0.00% which is insufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%. Docstring coverage is scoped to functions touched by this diff. Analyzed 1 functions across 2 files. (1 skipped: 1 …	Write docstrings for the functions missing them to satisfy the coverage threshold.

✅ Passed checks (4 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Title check	✅ Passed	The title clearly and concisely describes the main change: removing build paths from production Start manifests.
Description check	✅ Passed	The description covers the change, motivation, implementation scope, related issues, testing, contributor checklist, and release impact. It includes the required changeset for the published code chang…
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.

Full details: Docstring Coverage

Explanation

Docstring coverage is 0.00% which is insufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%. Docstring coverage is scoped to functions touched by this diff. Analyzed 1 functions across 2 files. (1 skipped: 1 unsupported.)

• Fix all pre-merge checks with AI

✨ Finishing Touches

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests

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