How to run Typst in CI/CD

Running Typst in CI/CD helps ensure your templates always compile in a clean environment, not only on your local machine.

What is GitHub Actions?¶

GitHub Actions is GitHub's built-in CI/CD system. You define workflows in .github/workflows/*.yml, and GitHub runs them automatically based on triggers (push, pull request, schedule, etc.).

Note

Here we'll only talk about GitHub Actions, but there are many other tools for CI/CD (GitLab CI/CD, CircleCI, Travis CI, etc.).

Install Typst and compile in CI¶

A minimal workflow to install Typst and compile one file every Friday:

.github/workflows/typst-friday.yml

name: Typst CI

on:
  schedule:
    - cron: "0 9 * * 5" # Every Friday at 09:00 UTC
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  compile:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Install Typst
        run: |
          curl -fsSL https://typst.community/typst-install/install.sh | sh
          echo "$HOME/.local/bin" >> "$GITHUB_PATH"

      - name: Compile smoke-test document
        run: typst compile summary-of-the-week.typ

In short:

we define what triggers the CI (e.g., every Friday)
we install what we need (Typst, among others)
we specify which file to compile

This example is very minimalist, and you can build things that are much more complex. For instance, you can combine this with Typst bindings such as Python, R, JavaScript, or Rust, and compile documents that connect to an external service (e.g., an API) and use that information to render the document.