Slidev Scholarly
Create and edit academic Slidev decks in VS Code with templates, layout previews, components, citations, and theme controls. The extension follows VS Code's display language and includes English and Simplified Chinese.
User guide · 中文指南 · Theme documentation
Install and open
Install Slidev Scholarly from the VS Code Marketplace. Requires VS Code 1.106.0 or newer.
Open a Markdown file, run Slidev Scholarly: Open Sidebar, and find the views in the Secondary Side Bar. The presentation project needs Slidev and slidev-theme-scholarly for preview, build, and export; the extension provides editing tools.
Choose how to start
| Action |
Result |
| Choose a template in Start · Templates |
Creates a complete project through the Scholarly CLI. Choose a new or empty folder, install dependencies, then run pnpm run dev. |
| Run Slidev Scholarly: Open Deck Builder |
Drafts an outline, then creates an untitled Markdown document or appends the selected slide to the active Markdown file. |
| Run Slidev Scholarly: Create Presentation from the Command Palette |
Creates a starter Markdown file in the workspace, or an untitled document when no workspace is open. |
Deck Builder does not create package.json or a bibliography. For a workflow with citations, choose Create template project in the generation notification, then save the generated outline in that project beside references.bib.
Build and customize
- Build · Layouts inserts a whole-slide snippet at the cursor. Use the eye icon to preview it.
- Build · Components inserts theorems, metrics, evidence, and other content within a slide.
- Build · Citations & Anchors lists BibTeX entries and internal destinations.
- Customize · Themes updates the active document's frontmatter with a preset, font, palette, or surface mode.
- Reference · CLI Actions runs project setup, snippet, workflow, theme, and diagnostic commands.
The sidebar inserts snippets at the cursor; Deck Builder's Append selected slide adds a page at the end of the file. Check the page boundary when inserting a whole-slide snippet manually.
Completions and snippets
| Trigger |
Suggestions |
layout: |
Layout names |
colorTheme:, fontTheme: |
Palettes and fonts |
contentMode:, chromeMode:, sectionMode: |
Surface modes |
< or ::: |
Components or Markdown directives |
](#, href="#, to="# |
Internal anchors |
ss- or scholarly- |
Snippets such as ss-cover, ss-theorem, and ss-cite |
Press Ctrl+Space for suggestions. Use Slidev's browser preview to check the rendered deck.
Check citations
Citation diagnostics report missing bibliography configuration or files, duplicate keys, unresolved citations, and missing reference slides. Quick Fix actions handle common repairs. Use Slidev Scholarly: Insert Citation to select a BibTeX entry.
For troubleshooting, Deck Builder details, and theme settings, see the user guide.
Develop the extension
From the repository root:
pnpm install --frozen-lockfile
pnpm --dir vscode-extension install --frozen-lockfile
pnpm --dir vscode-extension run compile
pnpm --dir vscode-extension run test
pnpm --dir vscode-extension run package
Install the generated .vsix with Extensions: Install from VSIX....
Slidev Scholarly: Toggle Dev Mode enables timing logs in the Slidev Scholarly output channel. Settings are slidevScholarly.devMode.enabled and slidevScholarly.devMode.slowThresholdMs (default: 25). See Contributing for the repository workflow.
Publish locally
Extension release tags do not run a GitHub Actions publishing job. Build and
check each VSIX locally, then publish that exact file with an authenticated
vsce session:
cd vscode-extension
pnpm exec vsce package --out /tmp/scholarly-stable.vsix
node scripts/check-vsix.mjs /tmp/scholarly-stable.vsix
pnpm exec vsce publish --packagePath /tmp/scholarly-stable.vsix
For a Beta package, add --pre-release to both the package and publish commands.
Keep channel-specific filenames. GitHub Releases can distribute stable and Beta
VSIX files with the same manifest version; Marketplace rejects a second upload
of the same extension version and target platform, even for a different channel.
A separate Marketplace Beta release therefore needs a distinct version number.
License
MIT
