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How do I …? ​

Short answers, with a link to where each is explained. Commands are shown for pnpm; with npm, write npx vitakit and npm run.

Content ​

… add a section vitakit does not have? Write content/<name>.yml, then pnpm vitakit add section <name>: it drafts the schema from your entries and puts the section on a page and in the PDF. Tutorial, chapter 5

… add a field to a section?pnpm vitakit add field teaching evaluation --type number. Accepting a field does not show it yet; see the next question. Schemas

… show a field that is accepted but not shown?pnpm vitakit customize teaching --web --pdf --field evaluation. Tutorial, chapter 6

… see which fields a section accepts?pnpm vitakit explain <section>. Built-in sections

… write a date that is not a single day?2024, 2024-03, { from: 2019, to: 2023 }, { from: 2023, to: present }. Field types

… link an institution?institution: { name: University of Graz, url: https://www.uni-graz.at }. Field types

… use mathematics in a title?$…$, as in LaTeX, in any field of type formatted text — titles of talks, theses, courses, publications. Field types

… keep my phone number, address or referees off the website?visibility: cv on the entry (in the PDF, not on the website), or private (only in documents that ask for it). Privacy

… find out what is wrong?pnpm vitakit validate lists every problem, with file, entry and field. Troubleshooting

Website ​

… add a page? A Markdown file in content/pages/, and a line in nav in content/profile.yml. For a page that shows sections: pnpm vitakit add page <name>. Pages and routes

… put a section on another page, or a second time?pnpm vitakit add section <section> --page /<page>/, or one line <VitaSection id="<section>" title="…" /> in the page. Placing sections

… change the order of sections on the CV page? Move the lines in app/pages/cv.vue.

… show only some entries, say invited talks?<VitaSection id="talks" title="Invited talks" :where="{ kind: 'invited' }" />. Placing sections

… show the three latest talks on the home page? The scaffold's home page does: <VitaSection :entries="talks" :limit="3" />. Placing sections

… change colours and fonts? The @theme block at the top of app/assets/css/main.css. Styling

… link slides or a PDF from an entry? Put the file in public/, e.g. public/slides/talk.pdf, and write slides: /slides/talk.pdf. The website shows a Slides link; the default PDF template for talks does not. If you change the template to show that link, also set your site's url in content/profile.yml so the PDF can link to its full address. Field types

Publications ​

… use my Zotero (or JabRef, or arXiv) export? Export it as BibTeX and replace content/publications.bib. Add status = {preprint} (or accepted, software, other) to what is not published. Tutorial, chapter 4

… show more or fewer of my newest publications on the home page? In content/publication-lists.yml, change limit: 3 in the list recent. Lists

… show only my preprints, or only my selected papers? Add a list: pnpm vitakit add publication-list preprints --where status=preprint, or --where keywords=selected for papers tagged selected in Zotero. It asks where to show it. add publication-list

… choose exactly which papers, in my order? A list with keys: [berger2024trees, berger2022urns], the citation keys from publications.bib. Lists

… group my publications by year instead of by status?groupBy: year in the list, e.g. all: { groupBy: year }. Settings

… put only recent publications in one PDF? A list with since: 2020, and \vitapublications[Publications]{<list>} in that document. Tutorial, chapter 7

… rename "Preprints" to "Submitted"?pnpm vitakit customize publications, then change the label of preprint in schemas/publications.ts. Statuses

… find out why a paper is not in a list?pnpm vitakit explain <list> shows how many each setting removed, and the citation keys of those it shows.

… change how references read on the website? Save a CSL style as content/publications.csl. Citation style

PDF ​

… change the order or headings of the PDF? The \vitasection[Heading]{section} lines in cv-tex/cv.tex. Documents

… leave old or minor entries out of the PDF? In cv-tex/cv.yml: sections: { talks: { since: 2020, limit: 10 } }. Selection options

… find out why an entry is missing from the PDF?pnpm vitakit explain <section> shows, per document, how many entries are included and which option removed the others.

… make a version of my CV for one application? Copy cv-tex/cv.tex (and cv.yml), change \vitadocument{…} to the new name, and edit the copy. Tutorial, chapter 7

… add a cover letter or a research statement? Plain LaTeX in cv-tex/prose/, included with \input{prose/…}. Variants and prose

… change fonts and spacing in the PDF?cv-tex/preamble.tex. PDF styling

… build the PDF without installing LaTeX?pnpm pdf --tex-only, then any TeX installation, Overleaf, or the scaffold's CI workflow. Building

Publishing ​

… publish the site?Publishing; the creator sets up a workflow for your host.

… keep my repository private? Choose a host that serves sites from private repositories, e.g. Cloudflare Workers or GitLab Pages. Publishing

… serve the site from a subdirectory, like ~username/? Set NUXT_APP_BASE_URL=/~username/ for the build. Publishing

Recipes ​

A few tasks that combine several steps.

Two lists from one section ​

Lena's talks are scientific and public ones. Rather than two files, one file with a field that tells them apart:

yaml
# content/talks.yml
- date: 2025-06-16
  title: The shape of large random $k$-ary trees
  kind: invited
- date: 2024-03-12
  title: What is a random tree?
  kind: outreach

and two lines on the page, one per kind:

vue
<VitaSection id="talks" title="Scientific talks" :where="{ kind: ['invited', 'contributed', 'seminar'] }" />
<VitaSection id="talks" title="Public talks" :where="{ kind: 'outreach' }" />

In the PDF, the same selection is where in cv-tex/cv.yml. A section appears only once per document, so for both lists in one PDF, use two sections instead: content/talks-science.yml and content/talks-public.yml, sharing a schema (pnpm vitakit add section talks-public --like talks-science).

Group entries by term ​

Courses grouped under a heading per semester:

bash
pnpm vitakit customize teaching --web --list --group-by term

writes app/components/TeachingList.vue with one heading per value of term, in the order of the entries, and shows teaching with it. In the PDF, grouping means writing the loop of cv-tex/templates/teaching.eta yourself; see templates.

Bring an existing CV over ​

If your CV is already data — YAML for another tool, a spreadsheet exported to YAML — it can usually be brought over with light changes:

  1. Use the built-in field names where a built-in section fits: position (employment), degree (education), title, institution. vitakit explain <section> lists them.
  2. Dates in vitakit's form: 05/2015 → 2015-05; [2012, 2014] → { from: 2012, to: 2014 }; since 2023 → { from: 2023, to: present }. Every entry needs a date to be sorted.
  3. Links as { name, url }: a name in one field and its web address in another (institution, institution-url) become one field.
  4. Lists where there may be several: a field that is sometimes one value and sometimes a list is always a list, [Lecture].
  5. Run pnpm vitakit add section <name> for each file. It drafts the fields a schema is missing, and lists every entry that still needs a change, with what to change.

pnpm vitakit status then shows what is where; pnpm vitakit validate what is left to fix.