flare-builder

Python package that compiles MadCap Flare .fltar / .flbat targets into HTML sites and PDFs without MadCap Flare / madbuild.

Install

pip install flare-builder
# or
uv add flare-builder

Requires Python 3.14+. PDF builds need a Chromium browser for Playwright:

playwright install chromium

Usage

Point -project at any Flare project root (or its .flprj):

flare-builder -project /path/to/docs/en.flprj \
  -target Project/Targets/FeatureGuide-HTML5

flare-builder -project /path/to/docs/en.flprj \
  -batch all-HTML5.flbat -workers 4

From a checkout of this repo (editable):

uv sync --extra dev
uv run playwright install chromium
uv run python -m flare_builder \
  -project ../ARS-docs/en.flprj \
  -target Project/Targets/FeatureGuide-HTML5

Output

Writes Flare-compatible paths under the project:

Output/<username>/<TargetName>/

HTML5 matches madbuild WebHelp2 shape (guides paths, skins, Data/Tocs, topic chrome). PDF: _print.html + resolved .pdf + build.log.

Vendored runtime: see flare_builder/runtime/README.md.

Development / ground-truth tests

Defaults to sibling ../ARS-docs (Output_exact/ + homemade Output/). Override with --project-root or FLARE_PROJECT_ROOT.

uv sync --extra dev
uv run pytest -v -m "not ground_truth"
uv run pytest -v -m ground_truth
uv run pytest -v --rebuild-homemade

Markdown one-to-one compare needs the optional parity group (private Azure index for oi-html-to-markdown):

uv sync --extra dev --group parity
uv run pytest -v flare_builder/tests/test_htm_markdown_one_to_one.py

License

MIT — see LICENSE.