Resolve "Question: does the "standalone" JAR need to be in the assembly ZIP?"

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -12,7 +12,8 @@ and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0
 
 ### Changed
 
-- (BUILD) [#176] The Maven Central deployed pom.xml properly includes runtime dependencies
+- (BUILD) [#176] The Maven Central deployed `pom.xml` properly includes runtime dependencies
+- (BUILD) [#175] The `.zip` file created from `maven-assembly-plugin` no longer contains the standalone validator, which reduces its size to 50%
 
 ## 1.6.0 - 2025-11-07
 

src/assembly/assembly-dist.xml

@@ -20,6 +20,10 @@
             <includes>
                 <include>validator-*.jar</include>
             </includes>
+            <!-- excludes always win over includes if both patterns match -->
+            <excludes>
+                <exclude>*standalone.jar</exclude>
+            </excludes>
         </fileSet>
 
     </fileSets>