create-font

create-font is the application package for the create-font font toolchain. It ships three Node-compatible executables with separate roles. Create a new workspace with the initializer:

npx create-font my-font
cd my-font
npm exec -- font dev

The generated workspace lists only create-font as a development dependency. Installing that package links both create-font and font locally. Inside an existing workspace, the initializer adds another font project without replacing the workspace or reinstalling its dependencies:

Run npx create-font display-font to add another font.

The repository development workflow, browser builds, and test suite use the Node and pnpm versions pinned by mise.toml. The installed runtime source uses Node-compatible APIs that Bun also implements. The interactive Elysia server selects its native Bun adapter under Bun and its official Node adapter otherwise. A smaller Bun CI job exercises the native adapter and built CLI. The command-line interface is defined with comline; its interactive server is an Elysia application; and create-font/rpc-client exposes the corresponding Eden Treaty client factory. The reusable workspace routes and client typing live in @create-font/server; this package composes them with the editor application and CLI build handler. The composed application discovers projects below fonts/, attaches the filesystem source service, and hydrates the editor through the same Elysia/Eden contract used for persistence. This keeps the server independent from the atom.io implementation in @create-font/states.

Executables

create-font [name] creates a workspace when the current directory is not one, or creates fonts/<name> when run inside an existing create-font workspace. A new workspace contains a private package.json, the local create-font development dependency, and a minimal validated Regular font source with one default master. New workspaces use npm install by default. Pass --package-manager=pnpm, --package-manager=yarn, or --package-manager=bun to choose another installer, or --no-install to defer installation.

font build [name] validates the selected directory source, projects it through the editor compiler, and emits a deterministic variable TrueType font. Outputs stay outside canonical source below artifacts/<project>/<PostScriptName>.ttf; the command prints the absolute artifact path on success. The file is replaced atomically only after source validation, target ingestion, and serialization complete.

Run npm exec -- font build workbench-sans to build with Node, or invoke the same local executable with Bun.

The target-v1 profile supports simple unhinted quadratic glyphs, complete gvar point deltas, a Windows Unicode cmap, named instances, the required 13-table variable TrueType set, and optional avar. Composite glyphs, OpenType Layout, color, vertical metrics, and instructions remain later profiles.

font dev [name] starts the Elysia workspace process on loopback by default. It discovers fonts/*/create-font.json, selects the sole project automatically, and serves its validated source units through the workspace RPC. With multiple font projects, select one by directory name:

Run npm exec -- font dev workbench-sans --port=4173 with Node, or invoke the same local executable with Bun.

font serve remains an alias for font dev.

Adobe feature tooling

font check [name] validates every indexed .fea source and its transitive includes without compiling a font or writing any files. The default stylish format prints source frames to stderr. --format=json writes the complete, deterministically ordered diagnostic array to stdout for CI. Errors, file failures, and Wasm initialization failures exit nonzero; warnings are reported but do not affect the exit code. NO_COLOR disables terminal color and FORCE_COLOR=1 enables it.

All feature consumers use the same project-aware operation from @create-font/source. The operation calls the Rust/fea-rs parser through its versioned Wasm ABI, resolves includes in the project host, converts UTF-8 parser ranges to UTF-16, checks exported glyph names, and lowers only the semantic subset the target supports. Adobe syntax accepted by fea-rs is not necessarily compilable by create-font: unsupported positioning, lookup, class, table, and other constructs produce fea.unsupported diagnostics rather than being ignored. dprint formatting likewise establishes syntactic validity, not create-font semantic support.

create-font-fea-lsp --stdio starts the standalone language server. It supports incremental document synchronization, multiple workspace folders, open-buffer overrides, watched feature/index/glyph inputs, stale-result suppression, project glyph and keyword completion, document symbols, and glyph hover. Operational JSON logs go only to stderr and are controlled by CREATE_FONT_FEA_LOG_LEVEL=off|error|info|debug; stdout remains LSP protocol traffic.

Build the platform-independent VS Code extension with:

font vsix --build-only

The resulting artifacts/CreateFontFeatures.vsix bundles the language client, server, parser JavaScript, and parser Wasm. Omit --build-only to install it with code, or select a compatible editor with font vsix --target=code-insiders. The extension recognizes .fea, includes basic highlighting, and provides Create Font: Restart Feature Language Server. Settings:

• createFont.features.executablePath: alternate LSP executable;
• createFont.features.modulePath: alternate server module;
• createFont.features.logLevel: operational logging;
• createFont.features.trace.server: protocol tracing, independently.

If the server reports a Wasm ABI or initialization failure, rebuild/reinstall the VSIX and ensure an alternate server path is not mixing create-font versions. No Rust toolchain or native parser executable is used at runtime.

Reads carry content-hash revisions. Single- and multi-unit writes use optimistic concurrency, idempotency keys, whole-project validation, and a transaction journal so coordinated entity/index edits either commit together or roll back.

Editor application boundary

The consumer package owns public/index.html and public/index.tsx. Its small browser bootstrap opens the server event stream before loading one coherent source snapshot, assembles that snapshot into local editor state, and persists changed units directly through the multi-write route. Ordered events carry only changed and removed units. A revision gap or reconnected stream recovers through one fresh snapshot. Dirty tabs buffer remote events until their local revision-guarded write completes, so another window cannot silently replace an edit that is waiting to save.

The server is the sole source revision sequencer and durable authority. The browser uses the browser-only @create-font/source/browser entrypoint to split editor state into unit writes; Zod schemas, whole-project validation, and the transaction journal stay in the server process.

@create-font/editor publishes its own browser-ready editor.js and editor.css. The Elysia server resolves those files from the installed production dependency and serves them under /editor/. Once a source is ready, the bootstrap dynamically imports the editor and calls its mountEditor boundary. The editor artifact owns its Preact renderer and hooks; it never shares component state with the bootstrap bundle.

The repository's pnpm dev command splits the development serving path at a deliberate boundary. Node runs the Elysia HTTP and WebSocket API in watch mode on port 3001. Vite serves public/index.tsx on port 3000 with Preact and CSS HMR. Vite aliases the editor browser entry to its workspace source and proxies /api, including WebSocket upgrades, to Node, so editor changes retain HMR without requiring a package build. Production emits only the bootstrap under dist/public; the editor implementation remains in the dependency package instead of being duplicated there.