HANDLEBARS(1)

💖 HANDLEBARS(1) 💖

okay bestie, so you found the handlebars man page — it lives in the User Commands part of the manual, section 1, which is the section for the stuff you actually type into a shell. come sit with me, this one's short but it's packed. 🎀

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✨ NAME ✨

handlebars — it's an extension to the Mustache templating language. that's it, that's the whole vibe. mustache but make it ✨fancy✨.

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

handlebars [template|directory]...

like, you just hand it templates or directories, plural, as many as you want, and it goes brrr. 🦋

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💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

Precompile handlebar templates. that's the whole job, no cap — you precompile them. <rainbow>iconic behavior honestly.

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🫶 OPTIONS 🫶

every single one of these, in order, exactly as they are, because we do not skip options in this house:

• -f, --output — the Output File. it's a [string]. 🍓
• --map — the Source Map File. also a [string].
• -a, --amd — Exports amd style (require.js). [boolean].
• -c, --commonjs — Exports CommonJS style, path to Handlebars module. [string] and the default is null.
• -h, --handlebarPath — Path to handlebar.js (only valid for amd-style, so don't come crying to me if you use it elsewhere 😭). [string], default is "".
• -k, --known — Known helpers. [string].
• -o, --knownOnly — Known helpers only. [boolean].
• -m, --min — Minimize output. [boolean].
• -n, --namespace — Template namespace. [string], and it defaults to "Handlebars.templates" because of course it does. 👑
• -s, --simple — Output template function only. [boolean].
• -N, --name — Name of passed string templates. it's Optional if running in a simple mode, and Required when operating on multiple templates. [string]. so basically mandatory-ish, bestie. 🙈
• -i, --string — Generates a template from the passed CLI argument. "-" is treated as a special value and causes stdin to be read for the template value. [string]. <cyan>the dash-stdin thing is the fun part.
• -r, --root — Template root. that's the Base value that will be stripped from template names. [string].
• -p, --partial — Compiling a partial template. [boolean].
• -d, --data — Include data when compiling. [boolean].
• -e, --extension — Template extension. [string], default "handlebars". 🌈
• -b, --bom — Removes the BOM (Byte Order Mark) from the beginning of the templates. [boolean]. bye bye invisible gremlin characters 👋
• -v, --version — Prints the current compiler version. [boolean].
• --help — Outputs this message. [boolean]. it's giving "help me help you" 💜

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real talk: those [string] / [boolean] tags and every default value up there are load-bearing. <hotpink>copy them exactly, don't freestyle. 💅

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and that's the page, bestie!! we ate. 🍽️✨ made by the handlebars crew — this is handlebars version 4.7.9, dated April 2026. mwah, go precompile something gorgeous. 🎀💖🦋