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File Integrity, Naming and Versioning

Last updated: August 21, 2026

An asset repository that people hot-link from has a property worth thinking about: the file behind a URL can be improved. That is usually what you want — a corrected logo propagates to everyone at once — but it means "the image I used" is a statement about a moment unless you have made it otherwise. This page is about the small amount of discipline that turns an ambiguous reference into a reproducible one.

Two strategies, chosen deliberately

Reference the canonical URL when currency matters more than fixity: websites, documentation, anything living. You inherit corrections automatically.

Download and record when fixity matters more than currency: print, packaged work, archives, anything that will be compared against later. Note the asset page you took it from and the date you took it.

Naming your local copies

If you download, keep the Vault's own filename. Renaming to something locally convenient is the single most common way a team ends up unable to answer which official asset a file came from, and it costs nothing to avoid.

When a file looks wrong

Check the asset's page in the Vault first — you may be holding an older copy, or a derivative that came from somewhere other than the Vault. If the file on its own page is genuinely wrong, that is a correction for the project through its contact channels, not something documentation can fix.

This guide describes practice, not a published versioning scheme. The asset page is the record of what a file currently is.

Official source

Canonical source for this subject: the Xdripian Asset Vault. Checked 21 August 2026 — where this guide and the live service disagree, the service is right.

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