Inlay

A Markdown-based musical tablature parser inspired by ChordPro. Write songs in plain .md files — compatible with Obsidian vaults — and render them as printable chord sheets with diagrams for guitar or ukulele.

---

Features

• Inline chord markers ([C], [G7], [Bm]) rendered above lyrics
• YAML frontmatter for song metadata
• Guitar (EADGBE) and ukulele (GCEA) chord diagram databases
• Custom chord definitions per song
• SVG chord diagrams in HTML output
• 2-column print layout — fits most songs on one page
• ASCII output for terminal use
• Obsidian-compatible: .md files render naturally in the vault

---

Quick Start

# ASCII output (guitar, stdout)
node src/cli.js examples/wonderwall.md

# HTML output (auto-saved to ./output/)
node src/cli.js examples/wonderwall.md --format html

# Ukulele chord diagrams
node src/cli.js examples/wonderwall.md --format html --instrument ukulele

# Open the result
open output/wonderwall.html

---

CLI

node src/cli.js <file.md> [options]

Options:
  --instrument  guitar | ukulele     default: guitar
  --format      ascii | html         default: ascii
  --no-diagrams                      suppress chord diagrams
  --output      <path>               override output path (HTML only)
  --help

HTML files are written to ./output/<name>.html by default, with song.css copied alongside them.

---

Song File Format

Files are standard Markdown with a YAML frontmatter block. They open and display correctly in Obsidian.

Frontmatter

---
title: Wonderwall
artist: Oasis
key: F#m
capo: 2
tempo: 87
time: 4/4
---

Field	Description
title	Song title
artist	Artist / composer
key	Key signature (e.g. F#m)
capo	Capo fret number
tempo	BPM
time	Time signature (e.g. 4/4)

Sections

Use ## headings to define sections. The type is inferred from the label:

## Verse 1

## Chorus

## Pre-Chorus

## Bridge

## Interlude

## Outro

Chords

Embed chords inline using square brackets immediately before the syllable they land on:

[Em7]Today is gonna be the day that they're [G]gonna throw it back to [Dsus4]you

Lines with no chord markers are treated as pure lyrics.

Blockquotes

Prefix lines with > to mark them as a chorus or highlighted passage. They render with a distinct left-border style in HTML.

## Chorus

> It can [E]hit you, it can [D]hurt you
> [A]Make you [F#m]sore and what is [Bm]more

To reference a section later without repeating the lyrics, use a single blockquote line whose text matches the section heading exactly:

## Verse 2

Some lyrics here...

> Chorus

This renders as a ↻ Chorus repeat marker.

Custom Chord Definitions

Define non-standard or slash chords in the frontmatter using ChordPro-style define strings. Custom definitions take priority over the built-in database.

---
title: Beware of Darkness
artist: George Harrison
instrument: ukulele
define:
  - "B/A frets 4 3 2 0 fingers 3 2 1 0"
  - "C#m/B frets 1 1 0 2 fingers 1 2 0 3"
  - "E frets 1 4 0 2 fingers 1 4 0 2"
---

Define string format: <name> frets <f1> <f2> ... fingers <n1> <n2> ...

Fret values: 0 = open string, -1 = muted (×).

---

Example

---
title: Wonderwall
artist: Oasis
key: F#m
capo: 2
tempo: 87
---

## Verse 1

[Em7]Today is gonna be the day that they're [G]gonna throw it back to [Dsus4]you
[Em7]By now you should've somehow real[G]ized what you gotta [Dsus4]do

## Chorus

> [C]And all the roads we have to [Em7]walk are winding
> [C]And all the lights that lead us [Em7]there are blinding

---

Styling

HTML output uses an external song.css (copied to the output directory). Edit it directly to customise fonts, colours, and layout.

Key classes:

Class	Element
.song-title	Title heading
.chord	Chord name above lyric
.lyric	Lyric text
.song-blockquote	Blockquoted passage (chorus)
.section-ref	↻ Section repeat marker
.chord-diagrams	Diagram grid
.song-body	2-column song content area

The stylesheet includes a @media print block that tightens spacing and scales diagrams for single-page printing.

---

Chord Database

Built-in chords cover the most common voicings across all 12 keys:

maj m 7 maj7 m7 sus2 sus4 dim aug

For both guitar (EADGBE) and ukulele (GCEA).

Slash chords and unusual voicings can be added per-song via define: in frontmatter (see above).

---

Project Structure

src/
  cli.js                 Entry point
  parser.js              Markdown + frontmatter parser
  song.js                Song data model
  chords/
    index.js             Chord lookup (with enharmonic fallback)
    guitar.js            Guitar chord database
    ukulele.js           Ukulele chord database
  renderers/
    ascii.js             Plain-text renderer
    html.js              HTML + SVG renderer
    song.css             Stylesheet (edit to customise)
examples/
  wonderwall.md
  Beware_of_Darkness.md
output/                  Generated HTML files (gitignored)

---

Requirements

Node.js 18+. No npm dependencies.