Generated nginx config returns 404 for /favicon.ico and /robots.txt while streaming file contents

[futzlarson]

Summary

On current Herd (1.28.0, macOS), the generated per-site nginx config returns HTTP 404 for /favicon.ico and /robots.txt while still streaming the correct file bytes from the site's public/ directory. Browsers honor the 404 and refuse to render the favicon; other static assets in public/ serve fine (200).

Environment

• Herd 1.28.0
• macOS (Darwin 25.4.0)
• Laravel 11 site, parked normally
• Site doc root via Herd is the project folder; favicon and robots.txt both live in public/

Reproduction

1. herd park a Laravel 11 project that has public/favicon.ico and public/robots.txt.
2. Visit https://<site>.test/favicon.ico.
3. Observe response: status 404, content-type: image/x-icon, content-length matching the actual file size.
4. Any other static asset in public/ (e.g. public/curitics.png) returns 200.

Verified with:

curl -sI https://care-management.test/favicon.ico -k
# HTTP/2 404
# content-type: image/x-icon
# content-length: 15086

Root cause

The generated config at ~/Library/Application Support/Herd/config/valet/Nginx/<site>.test contains:

server {
    ...
    root /;
    ...
    location = /favicon.ico { access_log off; log_not_found off; }
    location = /robots.txt  { access_log off; log_not_found off; }
    ...
    error_page 404 "/Applications/Herd.app/Contents/Resources/valet/server.php";
}

The two location = blocks capture the request but contain no try_files, alias, or fastcgi_pass. With server-level root /, nginx looks for the file at filesystem root, fails, and emits 404. The error_page 404 directive then invokes Valet's server.php, which correctly serves the bytes from the site's public/ folder — but the 404 status is already set and server.php does not override it to 200 for this path, so browsers discard the body.

Other static files in public/ are unaffected because they hit the location / block which rewrites to server.php directly (no prior 404 set).

Workaround

Removing the two empty location = blocks from both server blocks (ports 443 and 60) in the generated config and running herd restart restores 200 responses. This edit is lost on any regeneration.

Suggested fix

Either:

• Drop the empty location = /favicon.ico / location = /robots.txt blocks from the template — they no longer serve their original purpose (log silencing) because the requests already route through server.php cleanly without them.
• Or point both blocks at server.php explicitly:

  location = /favicon.ico {
      access_log off;
      log_not_found off;
      try_files $uri /Applications/Herd.app/Contents/Resources/valet/server.php;
  }

Happy to provide additional diagnostic info.

[dnwjn]

Same issue here on Mac, with version 1.28.0 (Build: 64).