Chat mode

Run awesome-md-to-pdf with no arguments and you land in a slash-command REPL with a 3D welcome banner, ghost hints, a live filtered dropdown of commands, and per-file progress bars.

Table of contents

Entering chat mode 

awesome-md-to-pdf

You’ll see the gradient ANSI Shadow MD-TO-PDF wordmark with the A W E S O M E eyebrow, an asymmetric origami icon, and the prompt:

[◈ · light] ›

The ◈ marker at the start of the prompt is the awesome-md-to-pdf glyph – a compact Unicode brand mark that matches the origami icon on the welcome banner.

As you type, the REPL helps you along.

Key Behavior
Type / A filtered dropdown of slash commands docks below the prompt.
Keep typing The dropdown narrows live to matching commands.
Up / Down Move the selection within the dropdown.
Tab Accept the highlighted command and keep typing its arguments.
Right or End Accept the dim grey “ghost” suggestion after the cursor (fish-shell style).
Enter Submit the current line.
Esc Dismiss the dropdown and ghost hint.
Ctrl+C Cancel the current line.
Ctrl+D Leave the chat.

Slash commands

Type /help inside the REPL for the latest table. Highlights:

Command Purpose
/help Show the command table.
/convert [path] Convert a file or directory. Defaults to the current input dir.
/design light <path> Load the light-mode DESIGN.md from disk.
/design dark <path> Load the dark-mode DESIGN.md from disk.
/design reset <light\|dark\|all> Reset one or both mode-specific designs to Claude baseline.
/design info <light\|dark\|all> Print parsed token info for one or both mode-specific designs.
/mode [light\|dark] Set the render mode. No argument toggles.
/input <dir> Set the working input directory.
/output <dir> Set the output directory.
/toc Toggle the auto-generated table of contents.
/cover Toggle the cover page.
/pages Toggle the page X / Y footer band.
/single Toggle single-file mode (merge all .md into one PDF).
/recursive Toggle recursion into subdirectories.
/accent <hex> Override the brand accent. /accent reset clears.
/ls List .md files in the input dir.
/status Show current session settings.
/open Open the output folder in your file manager.
/clear Clear the terminal.
/exit, /quit Leave the chat (Ctrl+D also works).

Iterating on a design

A typical chat session:

[◈ · light] › /input notes
[◈ · light] › /design light designs/linear-light.md
[◈ · light] › /design dark designs/linear-dark.md
[◈ · light] › /mode dark
[◈ · dark] › /toc
[◈ · dark] › /cover
[◈ · dark] › /convert

Each /convert runs the pipeline with a per-file progress bar showing the stages: parsing -> building html -> loading chromium -> rendering -> writing pdf.

The progress bar only renders when --concurrency=1 (the chat default). In batch runs with --concurrency > 1 we fall back to ora spinners so the output stays legible.

Leaving chat

Ctrl+D, /exit, or /quit. State is not persisted between sessions – by design, chat mode is meant to be transient.