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Use TinyTeX's maintained regex.json for LaTeX error detection #13612
Description
We manually maintain LaTeX error regex patterns in parse-error.ts, which requires ongoing maintenance when new LaTeX error formats appear.
TinyTeX publishes a comprehensive regex.json file as a release asset, generated by their build workflow (https://github.com/rstudio/tinytex/blob/d6e2c0d312e7a7782baab715ba24764a0452639d/.github/workflows/build.yaml#L173-L176). This file contains production-tested patterns used by RStudio's TinyTeX package manager.
Latest release: https://github.com/rstudio/tinytex-releases/releases/tag/daily
We could use TinyTeX's patterns as our source of truth for LaTeX error detection. This would keep us synchronized with battle-tested patterns that are updated daily by the RStudio team.
We could automate periodic sync to maintain alignment without manual effort.
Activity
cderv commentedon Nov 26, 2025
We've implemented a semi-automated approach to this in PR
What Was Implemented
Daily Verification Workflow (
.github/workflows/verify-tinytex-patterns.yml)regex.tar.gzfrom tinytex-releasesPattern Implementation (
src/command/render/latexmk/parse-error.ts)Documentation (
dev-docs/tinytex-pattern-maintenance.md)Test Coverage (
tests/unit/latexmk/parse-error.test.ts)Why Not Fully Automated?
TinyTeX patterns are designed for line-by-line matching in R code, while Quarto matches against the entire log as a single string. This fundamental difference requires careful pattern adaptation:
With ~4 pattern updates per year, manual adaptation after automated detection has proven practical.
Current Status
We're synchronized with TinyTeX (automated detection) but not fully automated (manual adaptation). This issue remains open for potential future work on complete automation, though the current semi-automated approach works well in practice.