retext is a tool that transforms natural language with plugins. These plugins can inspect and change the natural language. You can use retext on the server, the client, deno, etc.

Intro

retext is an ecosystem of plugins that work with natural language as structured data, specifically ASTs (abstract syntax trees). ASTs make it easy for programs to deal with prose. We call those programs plugins. Plugins inspect and change trees. You can use the many existing plugins or you can make your own. Some example use cases are to check spelling, fix typography, or make sure text is readable.

• for more about us, see unifiedjs.com
• for updates, see Twitter
• for questions, see support
• to help, see contribute or sponsor below

Contents

• What is this?
• When should I use this?
• Plugins
• Types
• Compatibility
• Contribute
• Sponsor
• License

What is this?

You can use plugins to fix typography. In:

He said, "A 'simple' english sentence. . .

Out:

He said, “A ‘simple’ english sentence…”

You can use plugins to check natural language. In:

He’s pretty set on beating your butt for sheriff.

Out:

example.txt
  1:1-1:5    warning  `He’s` may be insensitive, use `They`, `It` instead  he-she  retext-equality
  1:33-1:37  warning  Be careful with “butt”, it’s profane in some cases  butt  retext-profanities

⚠ 1 warning

And you can make your own plugins. You can use retext for many different things. unified is the core project that transforms content with ASTs. retext adds support for natural language to unified. nlcst is the natural language AST that retext uses.

This GitHub repository is a monorepo that contains the following packages:

• retext-english — parse English prose to a syntax tree
• retext-dutch — parse Dutch prose to a syntax tree
• retext-latin — parse any Latin-script prose to a syntax tree
• retext-stringify — serialize a syntax tree
• retext — programmatic interface with both retext-latin and retext-stringify

When should I use this?

It is recommended to use unified with retext-english (or retext-dutch) and retext-stringify if your content is in English (or Dutch). Otherwise, if your content is in another Latin-script language, use retext.

Plugins

retext plugins deal with natural language. You can choose from the many plugins that already exist. Here are three good ways to find plugins:

• awesome-retext — selection of the most awesome projects
• List of plugins — list of all plugins
• retext-plugin topic — any tagged repo on GitHub

Some plugins are maintained by us here in the @retextjs organization while others are maintained by folks elsewhere. Anyone can make retext plugins, so as always when choosing whether to include dependencies in your project, make sure to carefully assess the quality of retext plugins too.

Types

The retext organization and the unified collective as a whole is fully typed with TypeScript. Types for nlcst are available in @types/nlcst.

For TypeScript to work, it is particularly important to type your plugins correctly. We strongly recommend using the Plugin type from unified with its generics and to use the node types for the syntax trees provided by @types/nlcst.

/**
 * @typedef {import('nlcst').Root} Root
 *
 * @typedef Options
 *   Configuration (optional).
 * @property {boolean} [someField]
 *   Some option.
 */

// To type options and that the it works with `nlcst`:
/** @type {import('unified').Plugin<[Options?], Root>} */
export function myRetextPluginAcceptingOptions(options) {
  // `options` is `Options?`.
  return function (tree, file) {
    // `tree` is `Root`.
  }
}

Compatibility

Projects maintained by the unified collective are compatible with all maintained versions of Node.js. As of now, that is Node.js 12.20+, 14.14+, 16.0+, and 18.0+. Our projects sometimes work with older versions, but this is not guaranteed.

Contribute

See contributing.md in retextjs/.github for ways to get started. See support.md for ways to get help.

This project has a code of conduct. By interacting with this repository, organization, or community you agree to abide by its terms.

For info on how to submit a security report, see our security policy.

Sponsor

Support this effort and give back by sponsoring on OpenCollective!

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License

MIT © Titus Wormer