---

name: resume-forge description: >- Convert a Markdown resume into a professionally formatted PDF with multiple style options and ATS optimization. Use this skill when the user asks to create a resume, format a resume, convert a resume to PDF, build a CV, generate a professional resume, make a resume ATS-friendly, or restyle an existing resume. Triggers include: 'resume', 'CV', 'curriculum vitae', 'resume PDF', 'format my resume', 'ATS-friendly resume', 'professional resume', or any mention of creating career documents from markdown or plain text. Do NOT use for: cover letters, job searching, interview preparation, LinkedIn profile optimization, or portfolio websites. license: Apache-2.0 compatibility: Requires Python 3.10+ and weasyprint. No network access needed. metadata: author: abvijaykumar version: "1.0.0" last-updated: "2026-03-17" category: document-generation tags: "resume, pdf, career, formatting" allowed-tools: Bash(python3:) Bash(pip:) Read Write

Resume Forge — Markdown to Professional PDF

Transform a plain Markdown resume into a polished, ATS-optimized PDF.

Quick Start

For a fast conversion with the modern template:

python3 scripts/generate_pdf.py --input resume.md --style modern --output resume.pdf

For the full guided workflow with validation, follow the steps below.

Available Scripts

• scripts/parse_resume.py — Parses Markdown resume into structured JSON
• scripts/validate_resume.py — Checks for missing sections, formatting issues, ATS problems
• scripts/generate_pdf.py — Renders the final PDF from structured JSON + HTML/CSS template

Workflow

Progress:

• [ ] Step 1: Obtain the Markdown resume
• [ ] Step 2: Parse into structured JSON (scripts/parse_resume.py)
• [ ] Step 3: Validate structure and content (scripts/validate_resume.py)
• [ ] Step 4: Fix any validation issues (loop until clean)
• [ ] Step 5: Select style and generate PDF (scripts/generate_pdf.py)
• [ ] Step 6: Final review and delivery

Step 1: Obtain the Markdown Resume

Ask the user for their resume in Markdown format. If they don't have one, help them create one following the structure in assets/sample_input.md.

The expected Markdown structure uses H1 for the name, H2 for sections, and standard Markdown formatting for content. Example:

# Jane Smith
**Email:** jane@example.com | **Phone:** 555-0100 | **Location:** San Francisco, CA

## Summary
Senior software engineer with 8 years of experience...

## Experience
### Senior Engineer — Acme Corp (2020–Present)
- Led migration of monolith to microservices...

## Education
### B.S. Computer Science — MIT (2016)

## Skills
Python, Go, Kubernetes, AWS, PostgreSQL

Save the input as resume.md in the working directory.

Step 2: Parse into Structured JSON

python3 scripts/parse_resume.py --input resume.md --output parsed.json

This extracts:

• Contact information (name, email, phone, location, links)
• Sections in order (summary, experience, education, skills, etc.)
• Structured entries with titles, organizations, dates, and bullet points

Review parsed.json to confirm the structure was extracted correctly. If the parser misidentified sections, the Markdown headings may need adjustment.

Step 3: Validate

python3 scripts/validate_resume.py parsed.json

The validator checks for:

• Missing critical sections (experience, education, skills)
• Empty sections with no content
• Contact info completeness (name, email minimum)
• Date format consistency
• Bullet point quality (starts with action verb, reasonable length)
• ATS compatibility issues (no tables, images, or special characters)

Step 4: Fix and Re-validate

If validation reports issues:

1. Read the specific error messages — they explain what's wrong and how to fix it
2. Edit resume.md to address the issues
3. Re-run Step 2 (parse) and Step 3 (validate)
4. Only proceed to Step 5 when validation passes with zero errors

Common fixes:

• "Missing section: Skills" → Add an ## Skills section
• "No action verb" → Rewrite bullet to start with Led, Built, Designed, etc.
• "Date format inconsistent" → Standardize to YYYY–Present or YYYY–YYYY

Step 5: Select Style and Generate PDF

Ask the user which style they prefer:

| Style | Description | Best For | |-------|------------|----------| | modern | Clean sans-serif, subtle color accents, generous whitespace | Tech, startup, design roles | | classic | Traditional serif font, conservative layout, no color | Finance, law, academia, government | | compact | Dense layout, smaller margins, fits more content | Experienced professionals with extensive history |

Templates live in assets/. Each is a self-contained HTML+CSS file.

Generate the PDF:

python3 scripts/generate_pdf.py --input parsed.json --style modern --output resume.pdf

For ATS-specific optimization, read references/ats-optimization.md before generating — it contains keyword placement strategies and formatting rules that affect how ATS parsers score the resume.

For industry-specific styling guidance (font choices, section ordering, what to emphasize), read references/industry-styles.md only if the user specifies a target industry.

Step 6: Final Review

Before delivering the PDF:

• Open and visually inspect it — confirm no text is cut off or overflowing
• Verify all sections from parsed.json appear in the PDF
• Check that contact info renders correctly at the top
• Confirm the style matches what the user requested
• If the user wanted ATS optimization, verify plain text extractability:

  python3 -c "
  import pdfplumber
  with pdfplumber.open('resume.pdf') as pdf:
      for page in pdf.pages:
          print(page.extract_text())
  "
  

Gotchas

• WeasyPrint font rendering: WeasyPrint uses system fonts. If a template specifies a font not installed on the system, it silently falls back to a default serif font. The scripts install the required fonts automatically, but if output looks wrong, check font availability first.
• Page overflow: Long resumes may push content onto a second page with awkward breaks mid-section. The compact style handles this better. For modern and classic, the script auto-adjusts font size down by 0.5pt increments if content exceeds one page — but only down to 9pt minimum.
• Special characters in names: Accented characters (é, ñ, ü) work fine in the PDF but may break some ATS parsers. The validator warns about this.
• Markdown parsing edge cases: The parser expects ## for sections and ### for sub-entries. Using **bold text** as a section header instead of proper heading syntax will cause the parser to miss that section entirely.
• Date ranges with em-dashes vs hyphens: Use – (en-dash) not - (hyphen) for date ranges (2020–2024). The parser normalizes both, but the PDF renders en-dashes. If the source uses --, it converts automatically.
• Link formatting: URLs in contact info should use Markdown link syntax [text](url). Raw URLs work but look unprofessional in the PDF output.