rst-renderer
Getting Started

Quick Start

Install rst-renderer and render your first RST document in five minutes

Quick Start

This guide walks through the fastest path from zero to rendered HTML. For a full bioinformatics pipeline report, continue to Bioinformatics Report Tutorial.

1. Install

Pick the package that matches your workflow:

# Library (HTML / React / Markdown)
pnpm add @seqyuan/rst-renderer

# CLI (terminal rendering + templates)
pnpm add -g @seqyuan/rst-cli

# Vite plugin (import .rst in frontend projects)
pnpm add -D @seqyuan/vite-plugin-rst
pnpm add @seqyuan/rst-renderer

2. Write RST

Create hello.rst:

Hello rst-renderer
==================

This is **bold** and *italic* text.

Features
--------

- Parse reStructuredText into a unified AST
- Render to HTML, React, or Markdown
- Jinja2-compatible templates for reports

3. Render to HTML

TypeScript (one-liner):

import { renderRst } from '@seqyuan/rst-renderer'
import fs from 'node:fs'

const rst = fs.readFileSync('hello.rst', 'utf-8')
const html = renderRst(rst)
console.log(html)

CLI:

rst-render hello.rst -o hello.html

Open hello.html in a browser to see the result.

4. Choose Your Output Format

GoalApproachDocs
Styled HTML reportrenderRst() or CLIHTML Rendering
React component treeReactRendererReact Rendering
Markdown for another SSGMarkdownRenderer or --mdMarkdown Rendering
Vite import@seqyuan/vite-plugin-rstVite Plugin
Data-driven reportJinja2 template + JSONTemplate Engine

5. Template-Driven Reports (Preview)

For reports that change per project, keep structure in a .rst.j2 template and inject data at render time:

rst-render report.rst.j2 -t -d project.json -o report.html

The CLI also supports wildcard file discovery:

rst-render report.rst.j2 -t -d project.json \
  --scan plots=upload/plots/*_umap.png \
  -o report.html -s

-s produces a standalone HTML file with CSS and images inlined — ready to email to a client.

See the Bioinformatics Report Tutorial for a complete end-to-end example with Chinese content, QC tables, and plot galleries.

Next Steps

rst-renderer

reStructuredText renderer for JavaScript/TypeScript — RST → HTML, React, Markdown

Bioinformatics Report

End-to-end tutorial — Jinja2 RST template, JSON metadata, wildcard plot scans, and standalone HTML

On this page

Quick Start1. Install2. Write RST3. Render to HTML4. Choose Your Output Format5. Template-Driven Reports (Preview)Next Steps