typst-watch

typst-watch is an Emacs minor mode for Typst projects. It starts one buffer-local typst watch process per Typst file and stops that process when the buffer dies.

When a major-mode preview keybinding runs, typst-watch opens the generated PDF in a viewer if it is not already open. The original preview command is not called, so typst-ts-mode browser previews are bypassed. By default it tries zathura first and falls back to evince.

Requirements

• Emacs 27.1 or newer
• Typst on PATH
• A PDF viewer, usually zathura or evince
• typst-ts-mode or typst-mode for automatic activation

Installation

Put typst-watch.el on your load-path:

(add-to-list 'load-path "/path/to/typst-watch")
(require 'typst-watch)

Enable automatic watching for Typst buffers:

(typst-watch-auto-mode 1)

Or enable it per buffer:

(add-hook 'typst-ts-mode-hook #'typst-watch-mode)
(add-hook 'typst-mode-hook #'typst-watch-mode)

Behaviour

• typst-watch-mode starts typst watch when enabled and stops it when disabled.
• Closing the Typst buffer stops the buffer-local watch process.
• typst-watch-auto-mode enables typst-watch-mode in typst-ts-mode and typst-mode buffers.
• Major-mode preview commands listed in typst-watch-preview-commands are remapped to typst-watch-preview, which opens the PDF viewer when needed. Compile-only commands are left to the major mode.

Configuration

Use a specific viewer:

(setq typst-watch-pdf-viewer "zathura")

Change the fallback viewer:

(setq typst-watch-fallback-pdf-viewer "evince")

Use a different Typst executable:

(setq typst-watch-typst-command "/usr/local/bin/typst")

Disable automatic watcher startup while keeping preview integration:

(setq typst-watch-start-on-enable nil)

Change the preview commands whose keybindings open the PDF viewer:

(setq typst-watch-preview-commands
      '(typst-ts-preview typst-ts-mode-preview))

Change the output path rule:

(setq typst-watch-output-file-function
      (lambda (source)
        (expand-file-name
         (concat (file-name-base source) ".pdf")
         (expand-file-name "build" (file-name-directory source)))))

Development

Run the full local gate:

make all

Run only the tests:

make test