I built what browsers refused to ship: SRI for fetch()

Hamza Ezzaydia — Sun, 25 Jan 2026 23:57:46 +0000

The Problem Nobody Talks About

Browser SRI (Subresource Integrity) has been around since 2016. It lets you verify that scripts loaded from CDNs haven't been tampered with:

<script src="https://cdn.example.com/lib.js"
        integrity="sha256-abc123..."
        crossorigin="anonymous"></script>

Here's the thing: SRI only works on <script> and <link> tags.

When you fetch() a file - a WASM module, an AI model, a JSON config, any binary data - you get zero integrity protection. The browser just... trusts it.

What Happens When a CDN Gets Compromised

In June 2024, polyfill.io was compromised. The CDN started serving malicious JavaScript to over 100 million websites.

Sites that used SRI on their script tags were protected. Sites that loaded polyfill.io via fetch() or dynamic import? Completely vulnerable.

This isn't a theoretical attack. It happened. And it will happen again.

Why Native Solutions Fail

You might think: "I'll just hash the response myself with crypto.subtle.digest()"

Try that with a 4GB AI model:

File Size	Native crypto.subtle	VerifyFetch
100 MB	Works	Works
1 GB	Slow, RAM spike	2MB memory
4 GB	Browser crash	2MB memory

Native crypto buffers the entire file into memory before hashing. That's fine for small files, but completely unusable for large ones.

The Solution: VerifyFetch

I built VerifyFetch to fill this gap:

import { verifyFetch } from 'verifyfetch';

const response = await verifyFetch('/model.bin', {
  sri: 'sha256-uU0nuZNNPgilLlLX2n2r+sSE7+N6U4DukIj3rOLvzek='
});

If the hash doesn't match, it throws. Your users are protected.

How It Works

VerifyFetch uses a WASM streaming hasher compiled from Rust. Data flows through chunk by chunk - the file is never buffered entirely in memory.

The result: constant ~2MB memory usage whether you're verifying a 10MB file or a 10GB file.

It also includes:

Fallback URLs: If verification fails, automatically try a backup server
Progress tracking: Know exactly how much has been verified
Manifest mode: One JSON file with all your hashes
CLI for CI/CD: Fail builds if files change after signing

Generate Hashes

npx verifyfetch sign ./public/*.wasm ./models/*.bin

This creates a vf.manifest.json with all the SRI hashes.

Use in Your App

const vf = await createVerifyFetcher({
  manifestUrl: '/vf.manifest.json'
});

// Hashes are looked up automatically
const model = await vf.arrayBuffer('/model.bin');
const config = await vf.json('/config.json');

Enforce in CI

npx verifyfetch enforce --manifest ./public/vf.manifest.json

Your deploy fails if any file has changed since signing.

Try It

npm install verifyfetch

GitHub: https://github.com/hamzaydia/verifyfetch
Docs: https://verifyfetch.com

I'd love feedback on the API design and any edge cases I might be missing.

DEV Community: Hamza Ezzaydia