Flask-cache-manifest is a Flask extension to help you serve your md5 hashed assets. Having file hashes in filenames is a popular feature of modern asset bundlers. It's a good strategy for browser cache busting. However, Flask does not provide an easy way to reference those complicated and ever-changing filenames. Flask-cache-manifest lets you reference those assets by leveraging cache_manifest.json files.

Full Documentation: https://maxdup.github.io/flask-cache-manifest/

Turns:

<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet"
      href="{{ hashed_url_for('static', filename='css/app.css') }}">

into:

<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet"
      href="/static/css/app-d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e.css">

pip install flask-cache-manifest

The extension needs to be loaded alongside your Flask application.

Here's how it's done:

from flask import Flask, Blueprint
from flask_cache_manifest import FlaskCacheManifest

flaskCacheManifest = FlaskCacheManifest()

app = Flask('my-app',
            static_folder='dist/static',
            static_url_path='/static')

bp = Blueprint('my-blueprint',
               __name__,
               static_folder='blueprints/static',
               static_url_path='/bp/static')

app.register_blueprint(bp)

flaskCacheManifest.init_app(app)

app.run()

NOTE: Ideally, flaskCacheManifest.init_app needs to be called after you've registered your blueprints. Static folders registered after init_app will not be loaded.

Flask-cache-manifest adds the hashed_url_for function for use in your templates. It is analogous to Flask's url_for. Given the above example and its blueprints, here's how you would be able to reference your static files in your Jinja templates.

<!-- from the app's static folder -->
<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet"
      href="{{ hashed_url_for('static', filename='css/app.css') }}">

<!-- from the blueprint's static folder -->
<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet"
      href="{{ hashed_url_for('my-blueprint.static', filename='css/app.css') }}">

<!-- from the static folder relative to what is currently being rendered -->
<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet"
      href="{{ hashed_url_for('.static', filename='css/app.css') }}">