symaira-print

Turn Markdown into beautiful PDFs via named use-case profiles — so humans, CLIs, and AI agents (MCP) get consistent, predictable output without the pandoc/LaTeX iteration pain. Binary name: symprint. Part of the Symaira ecosystem.

You write semantic Markdown + a small frontmatter contract. The profile owns every visual decision (colours, heading sizes, cover page, page numbers, DIN 5008 geometry, PDF/A + PDF/UA). What you write is what you get.

Output of symprint render examples/behoerde.md -o anhoerung.pdf — DIN 5008 layout, PDF/A-2a + PDF/UA-1, rendered with the behoerde profile.

$ symprint render brief.md
✓ brief.pdf
  profile brief · engine typst 0.15.0 · PDF (tagged) · 42.3 kB · 180 ms

$ symprint render anhoerung.md -p behoerde
✓ anhoerung.pdf
  profile behoerde · engine typst 0.15.0 · PDF/A-2A+UA-1 · 38.7 kB · 195 ms

$ symprint validate report.md
✓ valid for profile "report"

Why symprint

• Profiles, not knobs. Pick brief, behoerde, report, rechnung, or meeting. The profile fixes the look; the document stays clean.
• One engine, no TeX Live. Renders with Typst — a single Apache-2.0 binary reached over PATH. symprint itself stays a single CGO-free Go binary.
• Behörde-grade output. The behoerde profile emits PDF/A-2a + PDF/UA-1 (tagged, accessible, archivable) in one step and fails closed if the document isn't accessible — exactly what E-Government / BITV 2.0 needs.
• DIN 5008 letters. brief and behoerde lay out the Anschriftfeld, Infoblock, and fold/hole marks for window envelopes.
• Strict, discoverable contract. Unknown frontmatter keys are rejected, so typos fail loudly instead of silently changing output.
• Reproducible. --reproducible yields byte-identical PDFs.
• MCP server for AI agents — render_pdf, list_profiles, validate_document, doctor over stdio.

Status

This is an early scaffold (v0.3.0). What works today, verified end-to-end against Typst 0.15.0:

• The full Go pipeline: strict frontmatter contract, profile registry, validation, engine detection, Typst shell-out, reproducible output.
• CLI: render, profiles, validate, doctor, config, mcp, version.
• MCP stdio server with four tools.
• All five profiles render. report produces cover + TOC + headers + page numbers; behoerde and meeting produce a verified PDF/A-2a + PDF/UA-1 file (pdfaid + pdfuaid + StructTreeRoot present).
• DIN 5008 letter geometry validated against KOMA-Script (LPPL) source values.
• veraPDF CI gating validates PDF/A-2a + PDF/UA-1 conformance on every push/PR.
• Brand fonts (Inter) embedded via go:embed for machine-independent output.

What is not done yet (see docs/architecture.md):

• The rechnung VAT/GiroCode logic (currently a scaffold).
• More profiles, and the pandoc/WeasyPrint fallback paths, are roadmap items.

Install

# From source
git clone https://github.com/danieljustus/symaira-print.git
cd symaira-print
make build              # → ./symprint (CGO_ENABLED=0)

# Engine (required for rendering)
brew install typst      # macOS
# Windows: winget install --id Typst.Typst
# Cross-platform: cargo install typst-cli

./symprint doctor       # checks typst + optional tools

After the first release, install via Go or Homebrew:

go install github.com/danieljustus/symaira-print/cmd/symprint@latest
brew install danieljustus/tap/symprint

Quick start

# 1. Write a document (frontmatter selects the profile)
cat > brief.md <<'EOF'
---
profile: brief
date: 30.06.2026
recipient:
  name: "Firma Beispiel GmbH"
  address: ["Industrieweg 7", "54321 Ort"]
betreff: "Angebot Nr. 2026-1"
---
Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,

vielen Dank für Ihre Anfrage …
EOF

# 2. Render
symprint render brief.md                 # → brief.pdf
symprint render anhoerung.md -p behoerde # PDF/A-2a + PDF/UA-1
symprint validate report.md              # check the contract without rendering
symprint profiles                        # list profiles + guarantees

See examples/ for one document per profile.

CLI commands

symprint render <input.md>        # render Markdown to PDF
symprint validate <input.md>      # validate the frontmatter contract
symprint profiles [name]          # list profiles or inspect one profile
symprint doctor                   # check typst, pandoc, and veraPDF availability
symprint config init              # write ~/.config/symprint/config.toml
symprint config path              # print the active config path
symprint mcp                      # start the stdio JSON-RPC server
symprint version                  # print the injected version

Global --json emits machine-readable output where supported.

Profiles

Profile	Use case	Output guarantees
brief	DIN 5008 letter (Form B)	tagged PDF
behoerde	Authority letter (DIN 5008 Form A)	PDF/A-2a + PDF/UA-1, DIN window
report	Report with cover + TOC	tagged PDF, themed headings, page numbers
rechnung	German invoice (data-driven)	tagged PDF (scaffold)
meeting	Meeting minutes	PDF/A-2a + PDF/UA-1

Full reference: docs/profiles.md · contract: docs/markdown-contract.md.

For AI agents (MCP)

symprint mcp            # stdio JSON-RPC 2.0 server

Tools: render_pdf(markdown, output_path, [profile], [pdf_standard], [reproducible]), list_profiles(), validate_document(markdown, [profile]), doctor(). All logs go to stderr; stdout carries only protocol messages.

Configuration

Configuration follows XDG and environment-variable conventions:

• file: ~/.config/symprint/config.toml
• prefix: SYMPRINT_*
• defaults: profile report, typst resolved from PATH

Create a starter file with symprint config init. CLI flags and MCP arguments always win over config defaults.

Architecture

symprint is a thin Go CLI/MCP shell around a typesetting engine:

Markdown + frontmatter ─▶ internal/press ─▶ Typst (PATH) ─▶ PDF
                          │  contract       │  cmarker (MD→Typst, in-engine)
                          │  profiles       │  --pdf-standard a-2a,ua-1
                          │  validation     └  SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH (reproducible)
                          └─ engine detect + graceful fallback

Design rationale, the engine decision (Typst vs pandoc/LaTeX vs CSS), and the phased roadmap are in docs/architecture.md.

macOS client

A native SwiftUI GUI lives in client/, built on the shared symaira-appkit package. It wraps the symprint binary (via SymairaCLIRunner) for a point-and-click render flow.

make client-gen    # xcodegen generate (needs xcodegen)
make client-build  # xcodebuild the Symprint scheme
make client-dmg    # package a .dmg (scripts/package-dmg.sh)

See AGENTS.md for the client's conventions.

Development

make build        # build ./symprint
make test         # go test ./...
make test-race    # race detector
make lint         # go fmt + go vet
make examples     # render example PDFs; requires typst on PATH

The public core intentionally contains no Cloud/Pro/billing code. Keep the rendering pipeline standalone-first: Typst is executed from PATH, not bundled or linked.

License

Apache-2.0 (see LICENSE and NOTICE). The Typst engine is not bundled; it is installed separately and is itself Apache-2.0.