YAMLResume is an MIT-licensed command-line tool that treats a résumé the way a programmer treats code: the content lives in one plain-text resume.yml file, and a compiler parses, validates and typesets it into a finished document. It began life as the typesetting engine behind PPResume, a commercial LaTeX-based résumé builder, and was released openly so that users are not locked into a hosted service. One source file can produce a pixel-perfect PDF through LaTeX plus Markdown, responsive HTML and a Word DOCX, and because everything is text the résumé can sit in git next to the projects it describes.

Key Features

• One source, four outputs — a single resume.yml renders PDF through XeLaTeX, Markdown, responsive HTML and DOCX; layouts are declared in the file itself, so several formats build in one pass.
• A real compiler, not a form — Zod runtime validation and a published JSON Schema catch malformed entries before anything is typeset, yamlresume validate prints clang-style diagnostics, and pointing the YAML header at the schema URL gives editors autocomplete and inline documentation.
• Watch mode — yamlresume dev rebuilds on every save, with --no-pdf and --no-validate to keep the loop fast while drafting.
• Templates — LaTeX moderncv-banking, moderncv-casual, moderncv-classic and jake; HTML calm and vscode; DOCX calm. yamlresume templates list reports what is installed.
• Layout control — rename and reorder sections, pick a template per output, and tune typography, paper size, line spacing and icon visibility without touching the content.
• Localisation — ten languages across twelve locale codes, selected with a locale block in the YAML.
• AI-assisted drafting — yamlresume ai generate builds a complete, schema-valid résumé from a job title and language, backed by OpenAI, DeepSeek, Kimi or a local Ollama model.
• Straightforward distribution — npm, pnpm, yarn or bun with Node.js 22 or newer, Homebrew on macOS, or a Docker image that already ships the CLI with XeTeX and the recommended fonts.

How it works

The design follows a strict separation of concerns: content stays in YAML, structure and validation belong to the compiler, and presentation is delegated to pluggable layout engines for LaTeX, HTML, Markdown and DOCX. Building a résumé from scratch takes two Docker commands and no local LaTeX install:

docker run --rm -v $(pwd):/home/yamlresume yamlresume/yamlresume new my-resume.yml
docker run --rm -v $(pwd):/home/yamlresume yamlresume/yamlresume build my-resume.yml

That second command emits the .tex source, the PDF, a DOCX file, Markdown and HTML in a single run. yamlresume doctor checks the environment — Node version, typesetting engine, fonts — before the first build, which is the usual place a missing XeLaTeX or template dependency surfaces.

Ecosystem

• GitHub Action — rebuild and attach the PDF on every push, so the résumé in the repository is always the latest version.
• json2yamlresume — converts JSON Resume files into YAMLResume format, which makes migration from the older JSON standard a one-liner.
• @yamlresume/playground — an embeddable React editor that powers the official browser playground, for building a custom résumé editor on top of the same engine.
• @yamlresume/samples — curated starter résumés for common positions across twelve locales.
• create-yamlresume — scaffolds a project directory with the YAML file and layout configuration already in place.

Who it is for

Developers and technical writers who would rather diff their CV than drag boxes around a canvas, and who want one authoritative file that rebuilds the same document identically a year later. It is less appealing if you want a visual designer with live formatting handles, or if you are not comfortable installing Node.js or running a container — in that case a browser-based builder is the better fit.

Alternatives

• Reactive Resume — open source, self-hostable résumé builder with a visual editor, ATS checks and job application tracking
• Overleaf — collaborative LaTeX editor, if you would rather write the .tex by hand than generate it
• Pandoc — general-purpose document converter for Markdown and LaTeX to PDF, DOCX and HTML