Sherp

A CLI for building presentations from Markdown/MDX. Instant dev server, multiple themes, keyboard navigation, and PDF export.

npm install -g @skeptrunedev/sherp-cli

🎨 Themes

Sherp comes with four built-in themes to get you started:

Terminal Green-on-black hacker aesthetic	Paper Sepia/cream academic style
Corporate Professional navy/blue tones	Default Minimal, no custom styles

Select a theme during project creation:

sherp init my-presentation --theme terminal

Or choose interactively when running sherp init.

📦 Monorepo Structure

This is a monorepo containing two packages:

• @skeptrunedev/sherp-cli - The CLI tool for creating and managing presentations
• @skeptrunedev/sherp-astro - The Astro-based presentation engine

✨ Features

• 📝 Write in Markdown/MDX - Focus on content, not code
• 🎯 Zero config - Works out of the box
• ⌨️ Keyboard navigation - Arrow keys, spacebar, and shortcuts
• 📱 Mobile responsive - 16:9 aspect ratio that scales perfectly
• 🎪 Overview mode - Press 'O' to see all slides
• 🔧 Fully customizable - Add your own CSS, JS, and React components
• 🚀 Fast dev experience - Instant hot reload
• 🎨 Built-in themes - Choose from multiple pre-built themes

🚀 Quick Start

Installation

npm install -g @skeptrunedev/sherp-cli

Create a new presentation

sherp init my-presentation
cd my-presentation
sherp dev

That's it! Your presentation is now running at http://localhost:4321

📁 Project Structure

my-presentation/
├── presentations/           # Your MDX presentation files
│   └── example.mdx
├── styles/                  # Custom CSS (optional)
│   └── custom.css
├── scripts/                 # Custom JavaScript (optional)
│   └── custom.js
├── components/              # Custom React components (optional)
└── sherp.config.json       # Configuration

📝 Writing Presentations

Create MDX files in the presentations/ folder:

---
title: 'My Awesome Talk'
author: 'Your Name'
paginate: true
---

# Welcome! 👋

This is my first slide

---

## Features

- Easy to write
- Beautiful output
- Keyboard navigation

---

# Questions?

Thanks for watching!

Slides are separated by --- (horizontal rules).

⚙️ Configuration

Edit sherp.config.json to customize your presentation:

{
  "title": "My Presentation",
  "author": "Your Name",
  "presentations": "./presentations",
  "customStyles": "./styles/custom.css",
  "customScripts": "./scripts/custom.js",
  "components": "./components"
}

🎯 Commands

Command	Description
sherp init <name>	Create a new presentation project
sherp dev	Start development server
sherp build	Build for production
sherp preview	Preview production build

⌨️ Keyboard Shortcuts

• Arrow keys / Space - Navigate slides
• Home / End - First / Last slide
• O - Overview mode
• F - Fullscreen (in browser)

🎨 Custom Styling

Add custom CSS in styles/custom.css:

/* Custom heading color */
.slide h1 {
  color: #ff6b6b;
}

/* Custom background for slide 1 */
.slide[data-slide='1'] {
  background: linear-gradient(135deg, #667eea 0%, #764ba2 100%);
  color: white;
}

📜 Custom Scripts

Add custom JavaScript in scripts/custom.js:

document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', () => {
  console.log('Presentation loaded!');
  // Add custom interactions
});

🧩 Custom Components

Create React/JSX components in components/ and use them in your MDX:

// components/CustomButton.jsx
export default function CustomButton({ children }) {
  return <button className="custom-btn">{children}</button>;
}

import CustomButton from './components/CustomButton.jsx';

# My Slide

<CustomButton>Click me!</CustomButton>

🚢 Deployment

Build your presentation:

sherp build

Deploy the dist/ folder to:

• Netlify - Drag and drop
• Vercel - vercel --prod
• GitHub Pages - Push to gh-pages branch
• Any static hosting service

🛠️ Development

This project uses npm workspaces. To develop locally:

# Install all dependencies
npm install

# Work on the CLI package
cd packages/cli

# Work on the Astro package
cd packages/astro

🤝 Contributing

Contributions welcome! Visit github.com/skeptrunedev/sherp

📄 License

MIT

🙏 Acknowledgments

Inspired by Marp - Made with Astro