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Your first report

This guide walks through creating a new report bundle, previewing it in the browser, and exporting a PDF. It assumes you have bino installed and available on your PATH.

1. Create a new workdir

Section titled “1. Create a new workdir”

A workdir is the root directory of a report bundle. Create a fresh folder and run bino init:

mkdir my-report
cd my-report
bino init

Without flags, bino init asks a few questions (target directory, report name, title, language). Use -y / --yes to accept defaults non-interactively.

2. Inspect the generated files

Section titled “2. Inspect the generated files”

After initialization, the workdir contains YAML manifests, data files, and helper files. Typical contents include:

  • One or more ReportArtefact manifests describing the report outputs
  • DataSource and DataSet manifests defining input data and SQL transforms
  • At least one LayoutPage describing page layout
  • ComponentStyle and Internationalization manifests for styling and translations
  • A .gitignore tuned for bino caches and build artefacts

Use your editor to explore these files. The manifests all share apiVersion: rainbow.bino.bi/v1alpha1 and a kind that selects the spec.

3. Preview the report

Section titled “3. Preview the report”

Start a live preview server from the workdir:

bino preview

bino scans the directory for manifests, starts a local HTTP server (by default http://127.0.0.1:45678/), and opens your default browser. As you edit YAML or data files, it reloads the preview automatically.

Tip: run bino preview --log-sql to see the DuckDB queries used to populate datasets.

4. Build a PDF

Section titled “4. Build a PDF”

When you are happy with the preview, export a PDF:

bino build

This runs schema validation, executes datasets in DuckDB, renders HTML for each report artefact, and converts the pages to PDF using Playwright. By default, PDFs are written into a dist/ directory under the workdir.

Example using a custom output directory:

bino build --out-dir dist/reports

5. Where to go next

Section titled “5. Where to go next”