Why can I not ignore .well-known/dat?

[da2x]

Why is this file a hardcoded exception?

It makes no sense distributing this specific file over Dat and doesn’t belong in Dat archives.

[joehand]

Can you say more about why it doesn't make sense to distribute this file over Dat? @pfrazee may have a bit more perspective here wrt Beaker.

[da2x]

The file is used to auto-discover a Dat archive/URL from a HTTPS origin/URL. You never need to discover a Dat archive’s own URL from inside the archive since your client obviously already knows it as evidenced by it having already downloaded the .well-known/dat file using the Dat URL. The file is only useful over HTTPS so I really don’t get why it can’t be excluded from Dat archives.