Programmatic API

Everything the binary does is importable, over two entry points.

formstand-cli/codegen, the browser-safe surface

Every step downstream of the IR is a pure string builder: no fs, no path, no TypeScript compiler. That subpath bundles for the browser, a build script, or your own tool.

The pipeline is zod schema → fromZod → FieldSpec IR → emitters. You can build a FieldSpec by hand instead of calling fromZod, which is what lets a UI drive the generator without a schema file existing anywhere.

import { fromZod, emitPlainForm } from "formstand-cli/codegen";

const code = emitPlainForm({
  ir: fromZod(profileSchema),
  formName: "ProfileForm",
  schemaImport: { name: "profileSchema", from: "./profileSchema", kind: "named" },
});

Exports include fromZod and isZodSchema; the emitters emitPlainForm, emitMuiForm, emitShadcnForm, emitChakraForm, emitMantineForm, emitAntdForm, emitTemplateForm, and emitModuleForm; emitZodSchema and emitInitialValues; joinModuleFiles; defineTemplate; parseUiTarget; labelFromName and the casing helpers; and the FieldSpec, EmitFormOptions, EmitModuleOptions, UiTarget, and VisualOptions types.

Per-field overrides are available here too: parseFieldOverrides validates a fields block and applyFieldOverrides stamps a walked IR, both pure data in and data out.

The playground's Schema builder generates forms client-side through exactly this subpath. It is the same code that runs on npx, not a port of it.

formstand-cli, the main entry

The main entry re-exports all of the above and adds the parts that need Node and the TypeScript compiler:

import { fromType, defineConfig } from "formstand-cli";

const { ir, typeName } = fromType("./types.ts", "Profile");

Import from formstand-cli/codegen for a browser bundle. The main entry pulls in the TypeScript compiler through fromType and will not bundle for the browser.