Skip to article content

Installing MyST Command Line Tools

Work locally with MyST documents and notebooks

To follow along with this quickstart tutorial on your own computer, it is helpful if you have some familiarity with using the command line, as well as using a text editor and/or JupyterLab.

πŸ›  Throughout the tutorial, whenever you're supposed to do something you will see a πŸ› 

Installing the MyST Markdown CLI πŸ“¦ΒΆ

mystmd is a command line interface (CLI) that provides modern tooling for technical writing, reproducible science, and creating scientific & technical websites. To get started, install mystmd.

Prerequisites

You should have these programs installed:

If the node ecosystem is new to you[1], see our getting started guides for installing node.

Check your node installation greater than version 16 (see Installing NodeJS):

node -v
>> v16.18.1

πŸ›  Install the MyST command line tools:

npm install -g mystmd

If you have any problems, see installing MyST and or open an issue here. πŸ›

Note: myst-cli is deprecated

In July 2023, we renamed the package to mystmd from myst-cli. Installing myst-cli will no longer create a myst command from your terminal. You can uninstall myst-cli using:

npm uninstall -g myst-cli
Updating MyST

There are new releases of the MyST Markdown CLI every few weeks, to update to the latest version of myst, use:

npm update -g mystmd

To get the latest templates, clean your templates directory with:

myst clean --templates

This will remove the _build/templates directory, which will be re-downloaded with the latest templates when you run myst start or myst build.

Download example contentΒΆ

We provide an example project that includes a few simple markdown files and some Jupyter Notebooks. In it's initial state, the project is not a good example of how to use MyST, but through the course of the tutorials you will correct that by improving the metadata, adding export targets, and creating a website!

πŸ›  Download the example content[2], and navigate into the folder:

git clone https://github.com/executablebooks/mystmd-quickstart.git
cd mystmd-quickstart

Go through the tutorials πŸš€ΒΆ

You are well on your way to getting started with myst the tutorials are written to go through in order, however, you can also jump in

πŸ›  Choose a quickstart tutorial to go on a mystical journey! πŸƒ 🎲

MyST Websites 🌎

Learn the basics of customizing a MyST Website, including sharing frontmatter between pages.

MyST Documents πŸ“‘

Learn the basics of MyST Markdown, and export to a Word document, PDF, and LaTeX\LaTeX!

MyST Markdown Guide πŸ“–

See an overview of MyST Markdown syntax with inline demos and examples.

MyST MarkdownMyST Markdown
Community-driven tools for the future of technical communication and publication