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The Retype CLI is clean and simple. The majority of the time you will run just one command: retype start
!!! Be sure to review the project options available within the retype.yml as it does unlock more power, flexibility, and customization. !!!
The --help option can be passed with any command to get additional details, for instance retype start --help will return all options for the retype start command.
The command retype --version will return the current version number of your Retype install. See all public Retype releases.
Let's go through each of the retype CLI commands and be sure to check out the Getting Started guide for step-by-step instructions on using each of these commands.
Description:
Retype CLI
Usage:
retype [command] [options]
Options:
--info Display Retype information
--version Show version information
-?, -h, --help Show help and usage information
Commands:
start <path> Build and serve the project using a local development only web server
init <path> Initialize a new Retype project
build <path> Generate a static website from the project
serve <path> Serve the website in a local development only web server
clean <path> Clean the output directory
wallet Manage Retype secret license keys
The retype start command is the easiest way to get your project built and running in a browser within seconds.
retype start
The retype start command will also watch for file changes and will automatically update the website in your web browser with the updated page.
The retype start command automatically opens the default web browser on your machine and loads the website into the browser. You can suppress this automatic opening of the default web browser by passing the --no-open flag or its alias -n.
retype start -n
Description:
Build and serve the project using a local development only web server
Usage:
retype start [<path>] [options]
Arguments:
<path> Path to the project root or project config file [Optional]
Options:
--pro Enable Retype Pro preview
--secret <secret> Retype license key
--password <password> Private page password
--host <host> Custom Host name or IP address
--port <port> Custom TCP port
-n, --no-open Prevent default web browser from being opened
-v, --verbose Enable verbose logging
-a, --api Watch for API changes
-?, -h, --help Show help and usage information
!!!danger
While it is technically possible to host your website publicly using retype start and the web server built into Retype, DON'T DO IT.
You should use a dedicated website hosting service, such as GitHub Pages, Netlify, Cloudflare, or absolutely any other web hosting service.
If you really really really want to try public hosting using the built in web server, use retype serve.
!!!
You can manually create a retype.yml file, or you can have Retype stub out a basic file with a few initial values by running the command retype init.
From your command line, navigate to any folder location where you have one or more Markdown .md files, such as the root of a GitHub project, then run the following command:
retype init
Calling the retype init command will create a simple retype.yml file with the following default values:
{%{
input: .
output: .retype
url: example.com # Add your website here
branding:
title: Project Name
label: Docs
links:
- text: Getting Started
link: https://retype.com/guides/getting-started/
footer:
copyright: "© Copyright {{ year }}. All rights reserved."}%} All the configs are optional, but the above sample demonstrates a few of the options you will typically want to start with. See the project configuration docs for a full list of all options.
To change the title of the project, revise the branding.title config. For instance, let's change to Company X:
branding:
title: Company XIf there is already a retype.yml file within the project, running the retype init command will not create a new retype.yml file.
The retype.yml file is not actually required, but you will want to make custom configurations to your project and this is how those instructions are passed to Retype.
Description:
Initialize a new Retype project
Usage:
retype init [<path>] [options]
Arguments:
<path> Path to the project root [Optional]
Options:
--override <override> JSON configuration overriding Retype config values
-v, --verbose Enable verbose logging
-?, -h, --help Show help and usage information
///region override
See the --override docs below for additional details.
///endregion
To generate your new website, run the command retype build. This command builds a new website based upon the .md files within the input location.
retype build
Within just a few seconds, Retype will create a new website and save to the output location as defined in the retype.yml. By default, the output location is a new folder named .retype. You can rename to whatever you like, or adjust the path to generate the output to any other location, such as another sub-folder.
If the .md documentation files for your project were not located in the root (.) but within a docs subfolder AND you wanted to have Retype send the output to a website folder, you would use the following config:
input: docs
output: websiteLet's say you wanted your new Retype website to run from within a docs folder which was then also inside of a root website folder, then you would configure:
input: docs
output: website/docsIf you are hosting your website using GitHub Pages AND you wanted to host your website from the docs folder, you could then move your .md files into a different subfolder and configure as follows:
input: src
output: docsThe input and output configs provide unlimited flexibility to instruct Retype on where to get your project content and configurations files, and where to output the generated website.
Description:
Generate a static website from the project
Usage:
retype build [<path>] [options]
Arguments:
<path> Path to the project root or project config file [Optional]
Options:
--output <output> Custom path to the output directory
--secret <secret> Retype license key
--password <password> Private page password
--override <override> JSON configuration overriding project config values
-w, --watch Watch for file changes
-v, --verbose Enable verbose logging
-a, --api Watch for API changes
-?, -h, --help Show help and usage information
{{ include "cli.md#override" }}
The retype serve command starts a local development only web server and hosts your website.
retype serve
The website generated by Retype is a static HTML and JavaScript site. No special server-side hosting, such as Node, PHP, or Ruby is required. A Retype generated website can be hosted on any web server or hosting service, such as GitHub Pages, GitLab Pages, Netlify, or Cloudflare Pages.
You can also use any other local web server instead of retype serve. Retype only includes a web server out of convenience, not requirement. Any web server will do. A couple other simple web server options could be live-server or static-server.
Description:
Serve the website in a local development only web server
Usage:
retype serve [<path>] [options]
Arguments:
<path> Path to the project root or project config file [Optional]
Options:
--host <host> Custom Host name or IP address
--port <port> Custom TCP port
-l, --live Live reload open browsers when a change in the project output is detected
-v, --verbose Enable verbose logging
-?, -h, --help Show help and usage information
{{ include "cli.md#override" }}
The retype clean command will delete the Retype managed files from the output folder.
If you manually add files or another process adds files to the output, those files will not be removed by retype clean.
Including the --dry flag triggers a dry run for the command and will list the files that would be deleted if the --dry flag was not included.
Description:
Clean the output directory
Usage:
retype clean [<path>] [options]
Arguments:
<path> Path to the project root or project config file [Optional]
Options:
--dry List files and directories that would be deleted
-v, --verbose Enable verbose logging
-?, -h, --help Show help and usage information
The retype wallet command is for managing Retype license keys.
Retype license keys are stored within an encrypted wallet file called license.dat.
To add a Retype license key to your wallet, run the following command:
retype wallet --add <your-license-key-here>
Once a license key is added to your wallet, the license key does not need to be added again. The key is stored in the wallet and Retype will read the key from the wallet with future builds.
A Retype license key can also be passed during a build. The key is NOT stored in wallet. The key would need to be passed with each call to retype build.
retype build --secret <your-license-key-here>
See how to configure a RETYPE_SECRET Environment variable for an option to set your project license key during runtime.
Description:
Manage Retype secret license keys
Usage:
retype wallet [options]
Options:
--add <secret> Add a secret license key to the wallet
--remove <secret> Remove a secret license key from the wallet
--list List the stored secret license keys
--clear Clear the wallet
-?, -h, --help Show help and usage information
The Retype CLI build command supports the --override option to allow dynamically modifying retype.yml project configurations during build.
The --override option is helpful in certain scenarios such as generating websites requiring different url configs, without the need to maintain several retype.yml files.
The CLI expects an escaped json object to be passed as the option value.
Retype merges the retype.yml configuration with the provided json object in a way that colliding configurations from the json override will overwrite the retype.yml values.
!!!
The --override json object may contain duplicate keys which will be processed sequentially. Last in wins.
!!!
Using the following retype.yml project configuration file as an example:
url: https://retype.comThe command below will build the website with the url https://beta.retype.com.
retype build --override "{ \"url\": \"https://beta.retype.com\" }"
The following sample demonstrates overriding a more complex configuration object.
Using the following retype.yml project configuration file as an example, let's change the label to beta, instead of v1.10.
branding:
title: Retype
label: v1.10The retype build --override would be:
retype build --override "{ \"branding\": { \"label\": \"beta\"} }"
To completely remove all the configs in branding, pass null:
retype build --override "{ \"branding\": null }"
The following command will add a GitHub link to the list of links.
links:
- link: Retype
text: https://retype.comretype build --override "{ \"links\": [{ \"link\": \"https://github.com/retypeapp/retype\", \"text\": \"GitHub\" }] }"
Passing null will remove the corresponding configuration value.
In the following sample, the website will be built as though url was not configured.
retype build --override "{ \"url\": null }"