Manuscript projects should support repo-url and repo-actions like book/website projects

[d-morrison]

Problem

book and website project types support repo-url and repo-actions out of the box, injecting "Edit this page" / "View source" links into the TOC sidebar and allowing a GitHub icon in the navbar. Manuscript projects do not — the manuscript-schema is declared closed: true with no inheritance from base-website, so these keys are silently ignored even when set in _quarto.yml.

Reproduction

Create a manuscript project (project: type: manuscript) and add:

website:
  repo-url: https://github.com/owner/repo
  repo-actions: [edit, source]

or under format: html::

format:
  html:
    repo-url: https://github.com/owner/repo
    repo-actions: [edit, source]

Neither produces the expected TOC action links or GitHub navbar icon in the rendered HTML.

Expected behavior

Manuscript HTML output should respect repo-url and repo-actions the same way book and website projects do, injecting .toc-actions links ("Edit this page", "View source") into the TOC sidebar.

Workaround

A Lua filter can replicate the behavior by reading repo-url/repo-actions from document metadata and injecting the links via inline JavaScript:

-- reads repo-url and repo-actions from _quarto.yml metadata,
-- injects .toc-actions div and GitHub icon via JS
function Pandoc(doc)
  if not FORMAT:match("html") then return doc end
  -- ... inject <script> that appends .toc-actions to nav#TOC
end

Full example: https://github.com/d-morrison/qmt/blob/main/_repo-links.lua

Root cause (schema)

In share/schema/definitions.yml:

• book-schema has super: resolveRef: base-website → inherits repo-url, repo-actions, navbar, etc.
• manuscript-schema has closed: true with no super → none of those keys are recognized.

The fix would be to add super: resolveRef: base-website to manuscript-schema, or to selectively expose repo-url and repo-actions in the manuscript schema.

Environment

• Quarto version: 1.9.36
• OS: macOS 14

[mcanouil]

@d-morrison please using LLM to make issues/PRs does not mean you can ignore contributing guidelines and issue templates.
There are issue et discussion templates in place in this repository and in many others which LLM can use if you tell them to.

For instance, the guidelines state that feature requests are to be opened in the discussion board.

Note also that opening issues/PRs without human oversight of the guidelines is against the Code of Conduct.

From https://github.com/quarto-dev/quarto-cli/blob/main/.github/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md

Submitting issues or pull requests via autonomous AI agents acting without human oversight. This specifically includes autonomous agents such as OpenClaw. AI assistants are accepted only when a human contributor has reviewed and verified the submission (see CONTRIBUTING.md). Autonomous agents deciding on their own to open issues or PRs in this repository are not. We consider these account-bannable on first offense. You have been warned.

[d-morrison]

@mcanouil understood; apologies!

[d-morrison]

PS - should I reformat and/or move it to the discussion board?

[mcanouil]

Let's keep it here for now.

I also made a PR to surface all guidelines directly inside the CONTRIBUTING.md file.

• docs(CONTRIBUTING.md): expand with contribution channel guidelines #14628

[cderv]

Thanks for the detailed report and for digging into the schema.

You've identified the gap correctly. Manuscript projects don't inherit from base-website, so repo-url and repo-actions under the website: key are silently ignored. There's also a second layer: even if the
config reached the right place, the HTML postprocessor that injects the .toc-actions links isn't hooked into the manuscript rendering pipeline the way it is for website and book projects.

Your Lua filter workaround is a reasonable approach in the meantime. One thing worth noting: setting repo-url and repo-actions directly at the document level (outside of website:) passes schema validation
and reaches format metadata, so the filter can read it from there without hitting the closed schema issue.

We could try to add native support for this — wiring up the repo action links for manuscript HTML output, however the placement would likely differ slightly from website/book since manuscript doesn't have the same navbar
structure (the title banner area is a more natural location for the GitHub icon, which is what your workaround does). The TOC action links (edit, source, issue) should be more straightforward to add.

For now, this isn't something we're prioritising in the short term — keeping it in the backlog.

Glad the filter approach works in the meantime. Lua filters and Quarto extensions are exactly the right mechanism for customizing output while native support catches up.