resume-text

JSON Resume → ATS-friendly plain text.

Render a JSON Resume into deterministic, machine-parseable plain text. The default ats theme emits one Label: value per line, which is the format that ATS systems like Workday auto-populate most reliably — the author verified this by applying through Workday with plain-text resumes.

Complements the resumed / resume-cli builders: use those for HTML/PDF, use this for ATS-ready text.

Why plain text for ATS?

• ATS parsers read plain text top-to-bottom. Columns, tables, and icon fonts break extraction.
• Label: value lines let parsers map fields (Name, Email, Job Title, Dates) unambiguously.
• Deterministic output means the same resume always yields the same text.

Installation

npm install resume-text

CLI

# Default: ats theme, labels on, human dates → writes <name>.txt
npx resume-text render resume.json

# Specify a theme
npx resume-text render resume.json --theme ats
npx resume-text render resume.json --theme standard

# Options
npx resume-text render resume.json --no-labels     # omit "Label: " prefixes
npx resume-text render resume.json --dates iso     # 2019-06 instead of June 2019
npx resume-text render resume.json -o out.txt       # output filename ('-' = stdout)

# List themes
npx resume-text themes

Library API

import { render } from 'resume-text'

const text = render(resume, {
  theme: 'ats',        // 'ats' (default) | 'standard'
  labels: true,        // include "Label: " prefixes
  dates: 'human',      // 'human' | 'iso'
  sections: ['basics', 'work', 'education', 'skills'], // filter + order
})

Custom themes

Themes are plain objects exposing render(resume, options). Use renderWith to wrap the built-in section renderers with your own defaults, or supply a fully custom renderer.

import { renderWith, renderSections } from 'resume-text'

const myTheme = {
  name: 'my-theme',
  description: 'Labels off, ISO dates',
  render: (resume, options) => renderSections(resume, 'ats', {
    ...options,
    labels: false,
    dates: 'iso',
  }),
}

const text = renderWith(resume, myTheme)

Themes

| Theme | Description | |---|---| | ats | One Label: value per line. Optimized for ATS auto-population. | | standard | Human-readable plain text: merged role lines, bullets, no labels. |

Roadmap

• compact theme (dense one-line-per-entry)
• Date ranges as From/To in all labeled sections (partially done)
• Validate against @jsonresume/schema before rendering

License

MIT

Acknowledgments

Output format influenced by the JSON Resume ecosystem and its text formatter (MIT). Plain-text field-labeling pattern informed by the author's ATS testing.