CLI

docforge init [document.json]
docforge check <document.json> [--json]
docforge build <document.json> [--output document.html]
docforge export <document.json> --output document.docx [--overwrite]
docforge preview <document.json> [--output-dir <directory>] [--engine word-com|libreoffice] [--json]

Build first (npm run build), then run node dist/cli/index.js <command>.

Command	What it does
`init`	Writes a small starter document. Refuses to overwrite an existing file.
`check`	Validates the schema and lints the content. `--json` prints `{ ok, file, issues[] }`; each issue has `code`, `severity`, `path`, `message`, and usually `fix`. Exit 1 when there are errors.
`build`	Writes a self-contained HTML preview (embedded CSS, running header/footer shown on the page). It is a browser preview, not the DOCX.
`export`	Writes the DOCX through `gordon-doc` and then verifies the package (header, footer, TOC, footnotes, images, page breaks). A DOCX that lost a requested feature is deleted and the command fails.
`preview`	Exports, then renders PDF and PNG pages into `<name>-preview/` (or `--output-dir`).

export and preview stop at lint errors; warnings are printed to stderr and do not block.

Requirements

gordon-doc (gordon-doc-converter). It is found through DOCFORGE_GORDON_DOC, then PATH, then a sibling ../gordon-doc-converter/.venv checkout.
Pandoc on PATH. Without it gordon-doc silently falls back to an engine that drops headers, footers, TOC and page breaks, so DocForge refuses to export.
For authoritative previews on Windows install Microsoft Word and the converter's word and images extras (uv sync --extra word --extra images), then pass --engine word-com. LibreOffice also works but does not fill the table of contents.

Converter version. DocForge needs a gordon-doc-converter that includes header/footer meta, div.toc and the Word fidelity fixes (merged in gordon-doc-converter PR #61, commit 189c5ea). They ship in gordon-doc-converter 1.0.0rc2 or later. Because it is a release candidate, install it with pip install --pre gordon-doc-converter (or uv tool install --prerelease allow gordon-doc-converter). Earlier releases silently drop headers, footers and the table of contents.

Exit codes

0 success, 1 operation or validation failure, 2 invalid CLI usage.