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TeXForge

Movable type once took a workshop. Now it takes one binary.

A single Rust binary that scaffolds, lints, formats, proofreads and compiles your document, then lets you inspect what came out — the text a reader sees, the fonts, the metadata, and which section opens each page. The LaTeX engine arrives by itself on first build, and Mermaid, Graphviz or D2 diagrams render inside your .tex files with no browser and no Node.js.

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Install
curl -fsSL https://install.univerlab.org/texforge | sh
Genesis · TERRA 2026 · Sol 87

Born from a thesis.

A master’s thesis, written with AI in the loop. Overleaf charged, TeXstudio was too heavy, VSCode wanted an extension for everything. All I wanted was Mermaid diagrams in my LaTeX — which of course meant Node and a pile of .mmd files. I duct-taped a latexmake to render the missing ones. It held the way duct tape holds. And every error sent the model scrolling a thousand-line build log to find one bad line. TeXForge condenses all of that into a binary and a skill.

\begin{mermaid}
flowchart LR
  tex[.tex] --> lint --> typeset
  typeset --> pdf[(PDF)]
  lint -.->|error| log
\end{mermaid}
Fig. 1 · build pipeline · mermaid
The whole press
  • 01Compose — templates with placeholders that already know your name.
  • 02Proof — a linter that catches broken refs, missing files and unclosed environments before the press runs.
  • 03Proofread — spell-checking that reads the language from the document — Babel, polyglossia, or your configured default — and checks prose against the right dictionary.
  • 04Set — one canonical format, like rustfmt for .tex. Clean diffs forever.
  • 05Illustrate — Mermaid, Graphviz and D2 blocks become figures at build time, rendered in pure Rust.
  • 06Inspect — the compiled PDF — text, fonts, metadata, page diffs and whether every source word survived.
  • 07Print — Tectonic compiles deterministically; watch mode reprints as you write.
Subproject

texforge-templates ↗

An open registry of LaTeX templates with placeholders — APA, IEEE, reports, letters and more. The general template ships embedded in the binary so creating a document works even offline.

FAQ

FAQ

What problem does TeXForge solve?
Compiling LaTeX normally requires installing TeX Live (4+ GB), then separate tools for Mermaid, Graphviz, and D2 diagrams — each with its own setup. TeXForge is a single ~15 MB binary that handles everything: scaffolding, linting, formatting, diagrams, and compilation.
Can AI agents use TeXForge to work with LaTeX?
Yes. An agent can run `texforge build` without installing anything — the LaTeX engine downloads on first use. Errors are concise (not 1000-line logs), and diagrams render inside `.tex` files without Node.js or external tools.
Does TeXForge support Mermaid and D2 diagrams in LaTeX?
Yes. Write a Mermaid, Graphviz, or D2 block directly in your `.tex` file. TeXForge renders it to a figure at build time, in pure Rust, with no browser or Node.js required.
How does spell-checking work in languages other than English?
The language comes from the document itself — `\usepackage[spanish]{babel}` or `polyglossia` — and falls back to your configured default when nothing is declared. Spanish is checked against a Hunspell dictionary with affix rules, so `soluciones` is recognised from the stem `solución` without being stored as its own entry. Dictionaries download on first use into `~/.texforge/dicts/`.