Command-line reference

Commands for creating, developing, validating, importing, and versioning M-Press sites.

Run mpress help to print the compact command summary.

Project commands

M-Press searches the current directory and its parents for mpress.yaml, so commands may be run from a nested content directory.

Start an existing project without changing your shell directory:

mpress dev ../product-docs

To begin from a remote repository, use one command. Git authentication comes from your existing credential helper or gh login. M-Press clones the source, creates a non-default work branch, builds the site, and prints the local UI URL:

mpress dev \
  --repo git@github.com:example/product-docs.git \
  --checkout ../product-docs \
  --branch docs/add-french

Open the printed URL and use Translations in the development bar. The editing tools recognise the prepared branch, so they do not ask you to prepare the repository a second time.

Start from a published M-Press page when the site has enabled contributions:

mpress contribute https://docs.example.com/guide/install/

M-Press discovers the repository and matching source file from the page. It uses ~/mpress-contributions/<owner>-<repository> by default, creates a safe contribution branch, selects an available port, and opens the local wizard. Use --checkout to choose another directory or --no-open to keep the browser closed.

Use --goal page or --goal translate to open the matching local workflow directly. Use --draft-file only with a development-only browser draft.

Build modes

Draft pages are excluded unless --drafts is supplied. The development server includes them automatically.

Production builds minify generated CSS and JavaScript with M-Press’s built-in Go minifier. It removes comments and redundant whitespace and shortens safe, non-repeated local JavaScript bindings. It does not need Node or an external minification tool. Production builds also remove clearly unused class and ID rules after scanning every generated page and the runtime script. Responsive at-rules are filtered recursively, while animation, font, and unknown at-rules are retained. Selectors without class or ID tokens are retained because custom HTML and runtime components can activate them later. Pass --no-purge-css when a build must retain every selector.

ZIP exports

Run mpress export to create <project-directory>.zip in the project root. The archive contains the production HTML, CSS, JavaScript, search indexes, and static assets at its root, ready for any static host. It does not contain source Markdown, the development bar, or authoring endpoints.

Use an explicit destination when another tool expects a fixed artifact name:

mpress export --strict docs-release.zip

M-Press refuses to replace an existing archive unless --force is supplied. Use --drafts only for private review archives.

Migration

mpress import --from starlight ../old-docs --output ./new-docs

Options may appear before or after the source path. The importer writes a migration-report.md next to the new project configuration.

Version artifacts

mpress versions capture v1.0
mpress versions capture --force v1.0
mpress versions list
mpress versions verify v1.0
mpress versions remove v1.0

Version labels may contain letters, numbers, dots, underscores, and hyphens.

Translation

mpress translate reads its API key from the environment variable named by translation.apiKeyEnv. It never writes the key to project files. Normal runs translate missing and stale segments and preserve manual edits. See Translate documentation for provider, glossary, state, and review details.

Run mpress translate --estimate --lang fr before a paid translation. This command uses the real translation plan but does not initialise or contact the provider. Token totals are approximate because provider tokenisers and target language lengths differ. Add inputPricePerMillion and outputPricePerMillion to the translation configuration to include a USD estimate. Use the current prices published for the configured model.

--harness codex and --harness claudecode override the translation provider for one command without changing mpress.yaml. They invoke the authenticated codex or claude executable already installed on the machine. The harness receives structured translation requests through standard input. M-Press still validates every returned segment before it writes a target page.

--model overrides the configured model for the same command. M-Press passes the value directly to the selected harness. For example:

mpress translate --lang ja --harness codex --model gpt-5.6-terra
mpress translate --lang ja --harness claudecode --model claude-opus-5

mpress translate audit --lang CODE performs a read-only quality check and returns a non-zero exit status when it finds an error. Add --harness and an optional --model to run a second semantic review. The reviewer reports findings only. It cannot rewrite translated pages.