Spall

Spall is a small CLI that renders Knap templates embedded directly in Markdown files.

Spall is inspired by Cog, but uses Knap's Markdown-native template language.

Install

npm install -g @lucasmelin/spall

Usage

Render a Markdown file containing a template:

npx @lucasmelin/spall render file.md --data data.json

All lines between [[[spall:begin and spall:generate]]] are part of the knap template. The lines between spall:generate]]] and [[[spall:end]]] are the output from the knap template.

For example, if you run this file through spall:

<!--[[[spall:begin
Hello from {{ name }}!
spall:generate]]]-->
<!--[[[spall:end]]]-->

with npx @lucasmelin/spall render file.md --set name=Lucas, it would generate:

<!--[[[spall:begin
Hello from {{ name }}!
spall:generate]]]-->

Hello from Lucas!
<!--[[[spall:end]]]-->

Line comments and Obsidian comments (%%) are supported as well.

Development

Prerequisites

This project uses Nix flakes to manage the development environment.

Setting up the dev environment

Enter the development shell, which provides Node.js, pnpm, and TypeScript tooling:

nix develop

# Alternatively, if you have direnv installed:
direnv allow

Install dependencies:

pnpm install

Running spall during development

Run the CLI directly against TypeScript source without a build step, using tsx:

pnpx tsx src/cli.ts <args>

Or compile first and run the emitted JavaScript:

pnpm build
node dist/cli.js <args>

Installing and running via Nix

You don't need nix develop just to run spall, the flake can build and run it directly.

Run without installing anything persistently:

nix run . -- <args>

Build the package and invoke the binary directly:

nix build .
./result/bin/spall <args>

Install Spall into your Nix profile so it's available on your PATH:

nix profile add .
spall <args>