Rendering a single file

The yfm content command processes a single Markdown file and prints the result to stdout (or writes it to a file). Unlike yfm build, it does not traverse the whole project and does not produce a full page: for the html format it emits only the content fragment — without the table of contents, header, or page chrome.

The command is handy when you need the preprocessed content of a single file quickly — for example, to pipe it into another tool, render a preview in an editor, or use it in your own pipeline.

Usage

# self-contained markdown to stdout
yfm content -i ./page.md -f md

# html content fragment into a file
yfm content -i ./page.md -f html -o ./page.html

Run yfm content --help to see the full list of options.

Output format

The format is set with the --output-format (-f) option:

• md — self-contained Markdown: includes and autotitles are merged into the file, and frontmatter is added. This is the default for a single file.
• html — the content HTML fragment only (no toc, header, or page chrome).

The same transformations as in a YFM → YFM build are applied: visibility conditions, variable substitutions, inline SVG, and heading substitutions.

Project root

Presets (presets.yaml), includes, links, and variables are resolved relative to a project root:

• by default the root is the current working directory;
• pass --config (-c) with a path to a .yfm file — its directory becomes the root.

Output streams

Warnings and errors are always written to stderr. On any build error the process exits with a non-zero code.

By default the rendered content is printed to stdout wrapped in delimiter markers so it can be extracted from the surrounding output (version line, build timer):

<<<<<< YFM CONTENT START >>>>>>
...content...
<<<<<< YFM CONTENT END >>>>>>

When --output (-o) is used, the result is written to the file raw — without the markers.

--rawmode

The --raw flag prints only the content to stdout — without the delimiter markers and without the framework banners (version line, build timer, completion banner). This is useful when piping the result straight to a file or another tool:

yfm content -i ./page.md -f md --raw > page.md

Diagnostics (warnings, errors) still go to stderr, and the exit code stays non-zero on error, so stdout carries valid content only.

--raw has no effect together with -o: file output is always raw.

Watch mode

With the --watch (-w) option the command watches the input file, its includes, and presets, and re-renders the result on every save.

Options

Other options match the build options.