Driving DesignCraft from agents and scripts

Every user-visible action in DesignCraft is a command (crates/engine/src/cmd), and every command is reachable three ways — pick whichever fits the agent:

Discover commands

designcraft-cli commands footnote        # every command whose id/label/menu mentions "footnote"
designcraft-cli describe xref.insert     # label, menu path, shortcut and parameters of one command

Parameters are documented on each command (params), e.g. {anchor? | paragraph?: text to find | story? + para?, format?}.

Scripts: several commands, later ones using earlier results

A script is one command per line (command.id {json params}; # comments), JSON lines, or a JSON array of {command, params}, in UTF-8 with or without a byte order mark. A parameter string "$N.path" becomes that value of step N's result: N is the 0-based step index (comments and blank lines are not steps, $last is the previous step) and the path goes through result fields and array indices ("$1.story", "$3.ids.0"); "${N.path}" interpolates inside longer strings. Any other string starting with $ stays as written ("$1-$2", "$5 off"), and $$ writes a literal $ anywhere ("$$1" passes $1, a GREP group). In text parameters \n starts a new paragraph and \u2028 is a forced line break (\u000b, Word's line break, is read as one too). Most commands ignore parameters they don't know instead of rejecting them, so check names with describe. designcraft-cli script --help prints this reference.

cat > page.dcs <<'DCS'
frame.create {"rect": [72, 72, 540, 300], "content": "text", "text": "Results of the survey"}
text.select  {"story": "$0.story", "anchor": 0, "focus": 0}
footnote.insert {"text": "Survey run in 2026."}
frame.create {"rect": [72, 320, 540, 500], "content": "text", "text": "See ."}
text.select  {"story": "$3.story", "anchor": 4, "focus": 4}
xref.insert  {"paragraph": "Results", "format": "Paragraph Text & Page Number"}
DCS
designcraft-cli script page.dcs --save page.designcraft --export page.pdf --export page.png
designcraft-cli script page.dcs --connect 7979      # the same steps, live in the running app

The result is JSON: {"completed": n, "results": [...]}, plus failedIndex / failedCommand / error when a step fails (the exit status is non-zero; --keep-going records errors and continues). run --cmd ID=JSON accepts the same references, and MCP's batch tool takes commands or script text with them.

run works through its arguments in order. --page, --scale and --pdf-options apply to the --export / --all-pages that follow them, so one run can write several sizes (run --sample --scale 0.5 --export small.png --scale 2 --export large.png); one with no export after it is an error.

--export writes the file type its extension names: .png or .jpg (a page), .pdf, .designcraft, .idml, .epub, .html, and .rtf or .txt (the story being edited or of the selected frame). A name with no extension is a PNG of the page; another extension is an error, and nothing runs.

Table of contents bookmarks

toc.generate accepts createBookmarks: true to generate page-level PDF bookmarks from the included paragraph styles and their levels. toc.update refreshes their titles, hierarchy and destinations. Refresh keeps the generated outline at its previous position, preserving manual bookmarks before and after it; disabling the option removes only the generated bookmarks. Without createBookmarks, toc.generate keeps the document's existing TOC setting, which is off when there is no TOC yet, so a script that makes a new TOC gets no bookmarks unless it passes createBookmarks: true. The Table of Contents dialog differs: its Create PDF Bookmarks option is on by default for a new TOC, and for an existing one it shows the saved setting.

Color themes

color.extractTheme {id?} previews up to five RGB colours from a placed raster image (or the selected image). swatch.addColorTheme {colors, name?} adds that palette as a colour group in one undo step. Extraction samples the whole source image on a bounded grid, weights partial transparency, and ignores fully transparent pixels. The image must contain at most 16 million pixels. PDF/SVG graphics are unsupported. This is local median-cut extraction, not Adobe's palette algorithm. In the UI, click an image with the Color Theme Tool (Shift+I), or choose Color Theme… in the Swatches panel menu with one image selected. Cancel keeps the document unchanged.

PDF/X-4 validation

designcraft-cli validate-pdf FILE.pdf prints JSON with valid and issues, and exits non-zero when a built-in check fails. Checks cover PDF version, output intent and profile, Info and XMP identification, image interpolation, encryption, trim boxes, Type 3 fonts, device RGB under a CMYK output intent, and unembedded fonts drawing visible text (including placed PDF forms). Render mode 3 (invisible OCR text) is exempt from the font-embedding check. PDF/X-4 export reports these issues as warnings; it does not embed or outline placed fonts. These checks are not a complete external PDF/X certification.

Data merge

data.source.select {path, sheet?} links a CSV/TSV/.xlsx file to the document (data.source.update re-reads it, data.source.remove drops it); data.fields lists its fields. data.placeholder.add {field, role?, story?, at?, end?, item?} marks text or a frame as a field (role: text, image, qr, hyperlink); data.options sets records, tiling and image fitting; data.preview {record} / data.preview.stop show one record without saving it.

data.merge now creates a new document and leaves the template unchanged (the old spread parameter, which appended pages to the template, is an error). It uses the linked source, or inline csv / rows / path / bytes:

echo 'data.merge {"path": "people.csv", "records": "range", "range": "1-20"}' | designcraft-cli script - --in template.designcraft --save merged.designcraft

The running app

designcraft --sample --control 7979 &
designcraft-cli app type.changeCase '{"case": "title"}'            # any command
designcraft-cli app --method ui.screenshot '{"path": "/tmp/w.png"}' # any control-channel method

ui.menu.invoke {command} without params acts like choosing the menu item: a command labelled "…" opens its dialog, which ui.dialog.set / ui.dialog.confirm fill in and close like a user would.

Parent pages

In the Pages panel, right-click a parent row and choose Delete Parent. The equivalent command is layout.parents.delete {id}, using the parent spread's numeric ID. It deletes that parent's shared artwork and clears its assignments from document pages and other parents. Local override copies remain as ordinary editable objects; document pages and their own content remain. Undo restores the parent and its relationships in one step. Deleting the last parent returns the canvas to document pages. Parent navigation is a separate operation.