deckz

deckz is a tool to manage a large number of slide decks (Markdown compiled with Typst), shared by several people, with slides ("sections") shared across decks. It is not meant to be usable out of the box by people who stumble upon this repository: it enforces strong conventions on the layout of the repository it operates on. Please open an issue if you want more details or want to discuss this approach.

Installation

With pip:

pip install deckz

Shell completion

Run deckz --help and look for the --install-completion / --show-completion flags to set up completion for your shell interactively, or run deckz generate-completion {bash,zsh,fish} to print the completion script yourself (e.g. to source from your own dotfiles).

Repository layout

deckz expects to run inside a git repository organized like this:

root (git repository)
├── deckz.yml
├── variables.yml
├── templates
│   ├── assets_builders.py
│   └── jinja2
│       ├── main.typ
│       └── env.py
├── content
│   └── some-section
│       ├── some-section.yml
│       ├── intro.md
│       └── advanced.md
├── assets
│   ├── img
│   ├── plt
│   └── pltly
├── company1
│   ├── variables.yml
│   └── deck1
│       ├── deck.yml
│       ├── variables.yml
│       └── content
└── company2
    └── deck2
        ├── deck.yml
        └── content

• content: reusable sections (Markdown content files), shared across decks.
• assets: everything else shared across decks (images, generated figures, or any other kind of asset your own templates/assets_builders.py produces). deckz doesn't know or care what subdirectories live under assets -- it symlinks every one of them into each build directory, so intro.md can reference plt/some-figure.svg the same way regardless of what else is in there. The plt/pltly names above are just this repo's own convention, set up by its templates/assets_builders.py -- see Assets builders.
• templates/jinja2/main.typ: the Jinja2 template used to render every deck's main Typst file.
• templates/jinja2/env.py: the Python module that configures the Jinja2 environment(s) used to render content files -- see Content files and the Jinja2 environment.
• templates/assets_builders.py: the Python module that builds this repo's assets (generated figures, or anything else) -- see Assets builders.
• Each deck is a directory containing a deck.yml (its definition) and optionally a content directory for files local to that deck.
• variables.yml files can be placed at any level of the directory hierarchy between the git root and a deck to avoid repeating values (e.g. one per client/company, shared by all of that client's decks).

Configuration

deckz.yml

At the root of the repository, deckz.yml holds settings, not content, e.g.:

pandoc_command:
  - pandoc
  - -f
  - markdown-auto_identifiers
  - -t
  - typst
  - --lua-filter={templates_dir}/pandoc/filters/boxes.lua
typst_parallel_compilations: 1
typst_font_paths:
  - assets/fonts
typst_ignore_system_fonts: true

• typst_parallel_compilations: how many PDFs compile at once (default 1). deckz compiles the main Typst file (paths.jinja2_main_template) with the typst Python bindings, each PDF in its own child process, which gives its memory back when done (Typst can take a few GB on a large deck, and already uses every core within one compilation). Under deckz run --watch, each PDF's process stays alive instead, so rebuilds are incremental: on a 145-page deck, an edit re-renders every PDF in about a second.
• typst_font_paths: directories where Typst looks for fonts, on top of its embedded ones (Libertinus Serif, New Computer Modern, DejaVu Sans Mono). Relative to the git root; {git_dir}, {assets_dir} and {templates_dir} are substituted too. Defaults to none.
• typst_ignore_system_fonts: when true, Typst doesn't use the fonts installed on the machine (default false). Together with fonts committed under typst_font_paths, every author's PDFs then come out identical whatever fonts they have installed, and each PDF also skips scanning the system's fonts (about 0.2s per PDF with a thousand fonts installed).
• pandoc_command: how deckz invokes pandoc to convert a rendered Markdown content file to the .typ fragment that gets #included, including any --lua-filter=... your own conventions need (fenced divs for admonition boxes, external code-file inclusion, etc.) -- entirely up to you, deckz has no opinion here. pandoc is invoked with a working directory matching the content fragment's own (possibly nested) position under the build directory, so any path an argument needs (e.g. a --lua-filter) should be written as {git_dir} or {templates_dir}, substituted with the resolved absolute path -- a bare relative path would not resolve consistently.
• file_extensions: the extensions tried, in order, when resolving a file include. Defaults to [".md"].

deckz.yml files are merged, in order, from the git root, from the user's config directory (XDG-compliant, e.g. $HOME/.config/deckz/deckz.yml on GNU/Linux), and from the current directory (and its ancestors up to the git root). Run deckz show settings to inspect the resolved result.

variables.yml

variables.yml files hold the values injected into the Jinja2 templates, merged the same way (git root → user config directory → current directory and its ancestors), so a value set closer to a deck overrides one set higher up. Run deckz show variables to inspect the resolved result for the current deck.

Example:

company_name: Company
company_logo: img/logo.png
company_logo_height: 1cm
deck_title: Machine Learning and COVID-19
presentation_size: 10pt

These variables are passed to templates/jinja2/main.typ, and to every content file, as a variables mapping; what the templates do with them is up to your own template and Jinja2 environment, not something deckz imposes -- see Content files and the Jinja2 environment.

deck.yml

Defines a deck's parts and, for each part, the sections and files it includes:

name: ABC
parts:
  - name: p1
    title: Part 1
    sections:
      - $first-section@standard
      - about
  - name: p2
    title:
      fr: Partie 2
      en: Part 2
    sections:
      - $first-section@light

Includes can point to a file (path/to/file) or to a shared section with a given flavor ($path/to/section@flavor); either form can be given a custom title with path: My title / $path@flavor: My title (or, as with p2's title above, a {fr: ..., en: ...} map instead of a plain string, when the text actually differs by language -- see Titles, variables and --en).

Shared sections

A shared section lives under content (or a deck's local content directory) and has a sibling .yml file describing its flavors, e.g. content/first-section/first-section.yml:

title: First section
default_titles:
  intro: Introduction
  advanced:
    fr: Approfondissement
    en: Advanced
flavors:
  - name: standard
    includes:
      - intro
      - advanced
  - name: light
    includes:
      - intro

Flavor-level variables

A flavor can also set its own variables, merged into the rendering context of its content (and, cascading down, of every section it includes) on top of variables.yml -- the way to give two flavors of the same section genuinely different content instead of duplicating the section itself:

title: Keras
variables_to_define:
  - depth: [shallow, deep]
flavors:
  - name: light
    variables: { depth: shallow }
    includes:
      - body
  - name: full
    variables: { depth: deep }
    includes:
      - body

body.md then reads {{ variables.depth }} the same way it would read any deck-wide variable. variables_to_define is a contract, not a default: it never supplies a value itself, it just declares that every flavor below must set that key itself (optionally restricted to the given list of values) -- a flavor missing one, or setting one out of range, fails to parse. deckz check variables statically surveys every shared flavor and every real deck for two kinds of drift this contract doesn't catch by itself: a fragment reading a variables.xxx name nothing resolved at that point ever sets, and a declared name no fragment anywhere under its section ever reads.

Titles, variables and --en

There is only ever one deck.yml/section .yml -- English is never a separate deck or a duplicated section, only a --en flag on deckz run (and on deckz check variables, deckz show/show paths/show variables, deckz section-files and deckz search-sections, to inspect the English variant the same way). Commands that act on the whole repository -- deckz clean content, deckz asset search, deckz asset deps -- always cover both languages, so an en/ file counts as used whenever a deckz run --en would pick it:

• Any title (deck.yml part/include titles, a section's title, default_titles values, a flavor's title) and any variables.yml value can be a plain string, used as-is in every language -- the right choice whenever the text is language-neutral (a proper noun, a number, code, or simply not translated yet) -- or an explicit {fr: ..., en: ...} map when it actually needs to differ by language, as in intro/advanced above.
• A translated body file lives at <parent-dir>/en/<filename>, a sibling of the French file, whatever parent-dir is -- a shared section directory, a deck's local content directory, or any nested subdirectory of either. Section/flavor structure itself is never duplicated for English.
• --en never silently falls back to French for a {fr: ..., en: ...} map that's missing its en key, or for a resolved file with no en/ sibling: both fail the build immediately, so a translation that was started but left incomplete can't accidentally ship untranslated. A plain string, on the other hand, is never a gap -- it means "the same in every language" by design. deckz i18n missing-en audits a deck for both kinds of gap (blocking and merely informational) without needing to actually compile it.
• fr and --en builds write to separate output paths (an en/ subdirectory under .build/pdf), so both can be built from the same checkout without clobbering each other.

Content files and the Jinja2 environment

Content files (a section's or a deck's included files) are plain text, templated with Jinja2, using whatever delimiters and filters templates/jinja2/env.py configures -- deckz itself has no opinion on this beyond providing the mechanism. That module must expose:

from jinja2 import Environment


def environment_for(suffix: str) -> Environment:
    ...

called once per content-file suffix deckz renders (typically once for the .typ main template, once for .md content), so different sources can use different delimiters/filters. This is also where you define any macro/filter your content relies on, e.g. an image filter emitting ![](...).

Whatever filter you use to reference an asset file (an image, a generated plot, ...) should call the assets_metadata_retriever context variable deckz injects into every render, e.g. from a filter function:

from jinja2 import pass_context
from jinja2.runtime import Context


@pass_context
def image(context: Context, path: str) -> str:
    metadata = context["assets_metadata_retriever"](path)
    ...

This is the hook that keeps deckz asset search/deckz asset deps (and the i18n tooling) accurate: skip it, and asset usage/licensing detection silently misses whatever your filter references.

Assets builders

deckz itself has no opinion on what assets a deck needs (generated figures, or anything else) or how to build them. Your repo supplies a Python module (templates/assets_builders.py) exposing:

from collections.abc import Iterable
from pathlib import Path

from deckz.components.protocols import AssetsBuilderProtocol, CompilerProtocol


def assets_builders(
    assets_dir: Path, compiler: CompilerProtocol
) -> Iterable[AssetsBuilderProtocol]:
    ...

called once (by deckz run/deckz run shared/deckz run all/deckz run assets) to obtain every builder to run. Each builder implements AssetsBuilderProtocol:

from collections.abc import Iterable
from pathlib import Path


class MyAssetsBuilder:
    def build_assets(self) -> None:
        ...  # write output files somewhere under assets_dir

    def watched_dirs(self) -> Iterable[Path]:
        ...  # source directories `deckz run assets --watch` should watch

build_assets should write its output somewhere under assets_dir -- deckz symlinks every top-level directory found there into every build directory, without needing to know their names (see Repository layout). watched_dirs only matters for deckz run assets --watch: it tells the watch loop which source directories should trigger a rebuild.

Markdown content and pandoc

Content files are authored in Markdown: deckz renders each one through its own Jinja2 environment (see above) and then converts the result to the .typ fragment the main template #includes, by shelling out to pandoc_command. Slide conventions your content relies on (admonition boxes, external code-file inclusion, columns, math, ...) are entirely up to how you write your Markdown and configure pandoc_command (typically pandoc's own built-ins plus one or more --lua-filter=... pointing at Lua filters you maintain in this repository, e.g. under templates/pandoc/) -- deckz only orchestrates the conversion.

Upgrading from 28.x (LaTeX removal)

deckz no longer compiles LaTeX. In a repository still laid out for 28.x:

• git mv latex content at the root, and in every deck directory.
• Remove compiler and build_command from deckz.yml (they're now ignored), and file_extensions if it only lists .md.
• The default main template is now templates/jinja2/main.typ: a paths.jinja2_main_template override pointing there can go.
• deckz clean latex is now deckz clean content.

Usage

Run deckz --help for the full list of commands, or deckz <command> --help for a specific command. The main ones:

• deckz run (alias for deckz run deck, optionally restricted with --parts) / deckz run file PATH / deckz run section SECTION FLAVOR / deckz run assets: compile the deck in the current directory, a single content file, a specific section flavor, or the project's assets. Add --en to compile the English variant (see Titles, variables and --en), or --watch to recompile on file changes instead of once. run file/run section write their output under <git_dir>/.run/, not the current deck's own pdf/.build, and open it once done (add --no-open for agentic/headless use, where only the printed path matters).
• deckz run decks / deckz run shared / deckz run all: validate the repository by compiling. run decks compiles every real deck end to end (by far the slowest for a repo with many decks, since every shared section gets recompiled once per deck that includes it). run shared compiles one throwaway deck containing every shared section expanded to every file in its directory (not just the ones some named flavor lists) -- fast enough to run while editing shared content. run all does the same plus one extra copy of a section for every deck that locally overrides one of its files. --en is strict: the first gap in translation coverage aborts the run. run shared/run all write their throwaway output under <git_dir>/.run/.
• deckz check variables: statically survey every shared section's every named flavor (not just the ones some deck currently uses) plus every real deck, resolving variables the same way a real build would. Reports a fragment reading a variables.xxx/variables['xxx'] name nothing resolved at that point sets (UNDEFINED), a variables_to_define name no fragment under its section ever reads (UNUSED), a fragment that fails to parse (UNPARSABLE), and a flavor/deck that fails to parse at all, e.g. a variables_to_define contract violation (STRUCTURAL). Nothing is compiled.
• deckz show (alias for deckz show tree): show the resolved tree of sections and files for the current deck.
• deckz show settings / deckz show variables / deckz show paths: print the resolved settings/variables/file paths for the current directory.
• deckz deps [SECTION] [FLAVOR]: show shared sections/flavors usage across the repository, including unused ones.
• deckz search-sections KEYWORDS...: search shared sections by title or Markdown heading.
• deckz section-flavors SECTION: list a section's flavor names.
• deckz section-files SECTION FLAVOR: list the files a section+flavor resolves to.
• deckz flavor rename SECTION OLD NEW: rename a flavor and rewrite all its usages.
• deckz flavor deduplicate: deduplicate section flavors that are identical up to their name.
• deckz asset search ASSET / deckz asset deps: find where an asset is used, or find assets missing license metadata.
• deckz clean / deckz clean all / deckz clean content: remove build directories, or unused shared/local content files (fr or en/). deckz clean all also removes the whole <git_dir>/.run/ scratch tree (run shared/run all/ run file/run section), and <git_dir>/.check/ (check variables).
• deckz i18n missing-en [--all]: report fr content/titles/variables with no English counterpart, i.e. what a deckz run --en would currently fail on.
• deckz generate-agent-notes: print onboarding notes for an AI coding agent working in the repo (conventions not already covered by --help, e.g. the section/flavor syntax and local-override resolution). Prints to stdout, e.g. deckz generate-agent-notes > CLAUDE.md.
• deckz generate-completion {bash,zsh,fish}: print a shell completion script (see Shell completion).
• deckz upload: upload built PDFs to Google Drive.
• deckz extras issue TITLE [BODY]: create a GitHub issue.
• deckz extras random REASON: roll a dice and email the result (handy for arbitrary decision-making, e.g. picking who does a task).
• deckz extras labs NOTEBOOKS...: normalize Jupyter notebooks (files, or directories searched recursively for *.ipynb) to this project's Colab conventions -- collapse every "Solution" markdown heading cell by default, and disable Colab's generative AI features. --dry-run lists what would change without writing.

Documentation

A partial code reference, generated from the docstrings, is published via mkdocs (see mkdocs.yml and the docs directory).