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Single File Bundle

zod-generator.config.json
{
  "useMultipleFiles": false,
  "singleFileName": "schemas.ts",
  "pureModels": true,
  "variants": {
    "pure": { "enabled": true },
    "input": { "enabled": true },
    "result": { "enabled": false }
  }
}

Produces one portable file; the variants directory is suppressed.

Give the bundle a dedicated output directory

After the bundle is written, the generator empties the directory it sits in: every other file is unlinked and every other subdirectory is removed recursively. With the default placeSingleFileAtRoot: true that directory is your configured output, so pointing single-file mode at a directory shared with another generator — a prisma-client output, for example — deletes that generator's files. This post-pass is not governed by any safety option and does not apply the Prisma-client preservation list that smart cleanup uses.

Set placeSingleFileAtRoot: false to put the bundle in a schemas/ subdirectory instead, which narrows the wipe to that subdirectory (if output already ends in schemas, the two settings resolve to the same directory).

What the bundler does​

Every generated schema is collected in memory and inlined into one file. Internal imports between generated files are stripped, and the following are hoisted once into the bundle header:

  • The Zod import, honouring both zodImportTarget and zodImportPath — the bundle reuses the same import line the multi-file output would emit, so zod/v3, zod/v4 and custom module paths all carry through.
  • The Prisma type import (import type { Prisma } from …), rewritten to a single specifier regardless of how many directory depths contributed to the bundle. If the client generator declares an importFileExtension, it is applied here too.
  • The JSON helpers literalSchema and jsonSchema, deduplicated to one copy instead of one per contributing file (v2.1.5).
  • External @zod.import modules — custom validator modules referenced from annotations are hoisted into the bundle rather than stripped (v2.3.3).
@zod.import paths are kept verbatim

Hoisted @zod.import lines are copied unchanged, so a relative specifier must resolve from the bundle's location, not from the model or schema file that carried the annotation. Absolute or package specifiers avoid the issue entirely.