Quarkdown

Quarkdown

Quarkdown is a Turing-complete Markdown flavor and typesetting system. Sources are .qd files. The compiler produces HTML, PDF (via Puppeteer), or plain text. Think "Markdown that can do what LaTeX does", with first-class functions, variables, loops, and conditionals.

This skill is the field manual: how to think in Quarkdown, the function call syntax that everything else builds on, the patterns that produce good documents, and the traps that produce broken ones.

When to reach for which feature

Always start by deciding the document type — it changes layout, page behavior, footnote rendering, and which functions even apply.

Then pick a theme combination. Defaults are fine; explicit common picks: paperwhite + latex (academic), darko + minimal (dark, clean), galactic + hyperlegible (highly readable web), beaver + beamer (academic slides).

The one syntax rule that explains everything

Every function call starts with a . and uses curly braces for arguments. Once you internalize this, the rest is vocabulary.

.functionname {arg1} named:{arg2}

Calls come in two flavors that look almost identical but behave very differently:

• Inline — sits inside a paragraph, output is spliced in. Hello, .uppercase {world}!

• Block — sits alone on its own line(s) and can take an indented body argument:

  .center
      This whole indented block
      becomes the body.
  

The body argument is always the last parameter of the function. Indentation must be at least 2 spaces or 1 tab and consistent across all body lines — inconsistent indentation silently turns part of the body into a code block.

Three more syntactic moves you will use constantly:

1. Chaining with :: — .a::b is sugar for .b {.a}. Reads naturally for math and pipelines: .sqrt {10}::round::multiply {2}.
2. Tight calls with {...} — wrapping a whole call in braces lets it sit next to word characters: H{.text {2} script:{sub}}O.
3. **Line continuation with \** — split long calls across lines: .container width:{100} \ ... newline ... padding:{1cm}.

For body arguments, prefer the indented block form whenever possible — it is much more readable than nested inline braces.

Read references/syntax.md when something doesn't parse the way you expect. The most common cause is body indentation or a paragraph that didn't get separated by a blank line.

How to write a Quarkdown document

A complete document has roughly this shape. Put metadata first, content second.

.docname {My Report}
.docauthor {Jane Doe}
.doctype {paged}
.doclang {English}
.theme {paperwhite} layout:{latex}

.pageformat size:{A4} margin:{2.5cm}

.numbering
    - headings: 1.1.1
    - figures: 1.1
    - tables: 1.1

.pagemargin {bottomcenter}
    .currentpage / .totalpages

<!-- Visible cover page: required if the user expects to SEE a title -->
.center
    #! .docname

    *.docauthor*

<<<

.tableofcontents

# Introduction

The first chapter of the report...

# Methods

...

Two things in the boilerplate that matter and aren't obvious:

• The .center block with #! .docname is what actually puts a visible title on the page. .docname alone only sets metadata. #! is a decorative heading — it renders large but doesn't enter the TOC or the heading-numbering sequence, which is what you want for a cover.
• <<< is an explicit page break, so the cover gets its own page before the TOC. Without it, the title and the TOC end up on page 1 together.

A few things worth knowing up front, because they catch people:

• .doctype defaults to plain — if the user wants a PDF book or a slide deck, set it explicitly.
• .docname and .docauthor only set metadata. They do not render a visible title or byline anywhere in the output. If the user asks for a "report titled X by Y", or otherwise expects the title to appear on the page, you must build a visible title block yourself — typically a centered cover page above the table of contents. See the title-block recipe in the cookbook (and the paged.qd template). Skipping this is the single most common way to ship a "completed" report that has no title on it.
• Heading numbering format strings count nesting levels, not heading levels. .numbering with headings: 1.1.1 means up to three nested levels will be numbered as 1, 1.1, 1.1.1. A document with only top-level # chapters will show 1, 2, 3, not 1.1.1. To get a 1.1.1 rendering on a single heading, that heading needs to be three levels deep (### Foo under ## Bar under # Baz).
• Figures, tables, equations and code only get numbered if they have a caption / cross-ref ID. A bare ![Logo](logo.png) is not numbered; ![Logo](logo.png "The logo") is.
• # triggers an automatic page break in paged documents by default. Use .autopagebreak maxdepth:{N} or .noautopagebreak to change this. Use ##! (decorative heading) to suppress numbering and TOC entry for a single heading.
• Never put <<< immediately before a # heading in a paged document. The # already auto-breaks; the explicit <<< adds a second break, which renders as a blank page between every chapter. Reserve <<< for forcing a break in places where one wouldn't otherwise happen — e.g., between a cover (.center block) and the TOC, or between two ## sections you specifically want on separate pages. If a chapter starts with #, it already gets its own page; do not add <<< above it.
• Markdown lazy lines bite hard. A, B, C on three consecutive lines without blank lines between them is one paragraph, not three list items. Stack functions like .row see one block, not three. Always separate items with blank lines, or use .container to force a fresh layout context.
• Writing in code blocks is exempt from text symbol replacement. Outside code, -- becomes —, -> becomes →, (C) becomes ©, etc. See references/cheatsheet.md.

The cookbook

When the user asks for something concrete, jump to the matching pattern. These are the moves that come up over and over:

For deeper recipes — author dictionaries, scoped page formatting, bibliography, subdocuments, persistent headings, custom numbered elements — see references/cookbook.md.

For the comprehensive function list with signatures (math, logical, string, collection, dictionary, optional, layout, document, slides, html), see references/functions.md.

How to actually compile and view it

The user will usually have the quarkdown CLI on PATH after installation.

quarkdown create my-doc          # interactive project wizard
quarkdown c main.qd              # compile to HTML in ./quarkdown-output/
quarkdown c main.qd --pdf        # compile to PDF (needs Chrome/Chromium for Puppeteer)
quarkdown c main.qd -p -w        # live preview + watch mode
quarkdown c main.qd --strict --clean   # fail on first error, wipe output dir first

Common flags: -o <dir> output directory, --render text for plain text, --allow network if the document fetches remote assets, --allow global-read to read files outside the project, --allow process to read environment variables. Default permissions are project-read and native-content.

When writing for a user, do not assume their project layout. If they have a main.qd, leave includes alone. If they're starting fresh, suggest quarkdown create rather than hand-writing the boilerplate.

What to avoid

These are the mistakes that produce mysterious behavior. Catch them before the user does.

• Don't stack <<< before a # heading in paged mode. # already auto-page-breaks, so <<< followed by # produces a blank page. If you want a chapter on a fresh page, just start it with # — nothing else.
• Don't put .row items on consecutive lines without blank lines. They merge into one paragraph (one item from the row's perspective). Always blank-line separate, or use .container for each item that has internal structure.
• Don't use .center { ... .row ... } with a row inside braces. Inline arguments don't accept block calls. Use the body form: .center newline indented .row ...
• Don't expect .currentpage to be a number. .currentpage and .totalpages are visual nodes, not values — you cannot do .sum {.currentpage} {3}.
• Don't mix tabs and spaces in body arguments. Pick one and be consistent inside a single body block.
• Don't forget to escape literal dots that start a line if they would be parsed as a function call. Use a backslash: \.something.
• Don't expect inline $math$ to work without spaces around the $. Let $x$ be... is wrong. Let $ x $ be... is right.
• Don't write .doctype slides and then use # for slide content without realizing each # becomes a new slide. Use ## or ##! for headings inside a slide.
• Don't use named arguments that come before positional ones. Once you switch to named, all following must be named.

When the user is stuck

Check the obvious things first:

1. Is .doctype set, and matches what they're trying to do? (Page-counter + plain won't work.)
2. Did they forget the blank line between blocks inside a body argument?
3. Did they nest a block call inside {...} instead of using the indented body?
4. Is .numbering set if they expect figures/tables/equations to have numbers?
5. Did they capture an image's caption with "..." so it becomes a numbered figure?
6. Did permission issues block file/network access? (--allow ...)

Then look at references/cookbook.md for a pattern that matches their goal, or references/functions.md for the exact signature of the function that's misbehaving.

Quick orientation files

• references/syntax.md — full syntax rules: positional vs named args, body args, chaining, lambdas, destructuring, line continuation, tight calls, escaping
• references/functions.md — categorized reference of stdlib functions with signatures and one-line summaries
• references/cookbook.md — longer recipes: layouts, custom components, slides, paged docs, docs sites, tables, charts, bibliographies, subdocuments, themes
• references/cheatsheet.md — terse one-pager: text symbols, image syntax, footnote syntax, quote types, headings, common gotchas
• assets/templates/ — ready-to-edit starter templates for each .doctype