From Quarto

What is different from Quarto, and how to check a project before you move it.

smalldocs builds the website part of Quarto. A project that uses only that part builds with either tool. The two builds give the same pages, the same anchors and the same links.

Check a project first:

smalldocs check docs

The command builds the site into a temporary folder. Then it lists what smalldocs does not read:

each option that smalldocs ignores
each broken link
each piece of Pandoc’s Markdown that smalldocs does not read, with its file and its line

If the command finds anything, its exit code is 1.

What smalldocs does not do

Quarto	smalldocs
PDF, Word, slides, books, manuscripts	Websites only. A `book` is built as a website
Runs `{python}`, `{r}` and `{ojs}` cells	Shows the code and runs nothing. A notebook shows its saved outputs
Compiles `.scss` themes	Takes any Bootswatch theme and your CSS. See Themes
Lua filters	Runs no Lua. The linkify of smalldocs does the work of `linkify.lua`
Grid tables, citations, cross-references (`@fig-x`)	Does not read them. Write a pipe table, and a link to the id
Every Pandoc extension	CommonMark, tables, footnotes, definition lists, task lists, attributes, divs, callouts, tabsets, maths, raw HTML, shortcodes
Algolia search, comments, analytics	A search box over `search.json`. Add the others with `include-in-header`

What is the same

smalldocs reads _quarto.yml, and merges it with _metadata.yml and front matter in the same order as Quarto.
smalldocs makes the ids of headings by the rules of Pandoc. So links and anchors that were written for Quarto keep working.
A link to a .qmd, .md or .ipynb file becomes a link to the .html file. A link that starts with / starts at the root of the project.
The HTML of the page has the same classes and ids as in Quarto, such as #quarto-sidebar, #TOC, .callout-note, .panel-tabset and .quarto-grid-item. So most CSS that was written for a Quarto site works.
smalldocs runs pre-render and post-render with the same environment variables as Quarto.

Move a project

Run smalldocs check, and fix what it lists.
Run smalldocs preview. Compare each page with the page that Quarto made.
In the recipe that builds the site, change quarto render to smalldocs render. Change quarto publish gh-pages to smalldocs publish gh-pages.
If the project has its own apidocs.py, think about the api of smalldocs instead. See The API reference.
When Quarto no longer builds the project, change _quarto.yml to _smalldocs.yml. See A _quarto.yml.