A portable LaTeX authoring environment powered by Docker and VS Code — no local TeX Live installation required.

Underleaf wraps a full TeX Live distribution in Docker so you can write, compile, and version-control LaTeX documents on any machine. Clone the repo, run one command, and get a reproducible PDF — every time.

Great for: research papers, technical reports, theses, and any document where formatting precision matters.

• Docker (running)
• VS Code + LaTeX Workshop (optional, for editor support)

# 1. Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/hughsio/underleaf.git
cd underleaf

# 2. Build the Docker image (one-time setup)
docker build -t underleaf .

# 3. Compile the starter document
./build.sh
# → report.pdf appears in the current directory

That's it. Edit report.tex, run ./build.sh again, repeat.

underleaf/
├── Dockerfile          # TeX Live image with latexmk + biber
├── Makefile            # Convenience targets
├── build.sh            # Compile report.tex via Docker
├── clean.sh            # Remove LaTeX auxiliary files
├── report.tex          # Starter document — edit this
├── references.bib      # Bibliography entries (BibLaTeX format)
└── .gitignore          # Excludes PDFs and build artifacts

Edit the source files:

• report.tex — main document; change the title, author, and content
• references.bib — add bibliography entries in BibTeX format
• images/ — put figures here and reference them with \includegraphics{images/yourfile}

Change the citation style by editing the biblatex options in report.tex:

% IEEE numbered references (default)
\usepackage[style=ieee, backend=biber]{biblatex}

% APA author-year references
\usepackage[style=apa, backend=biber]{biblatex}

Rename the main file from report.tex to something else — update the filename in build.sh, clean.sh, and Makefile.

build.sh mounts the current directory into the Docker container and runs a full LaTeX compile cycle:

pdflatex  →  biber  →  pdflatex  →  pdflatex

Three passes are needed: the first generates structure, biber processes bibliography, and the final two passes resolve cross-references and citations.

• Install LaTeX Workshop for syntax highlighting, autocomplete, and PDF preview
• Configure LaTeX Workshop to use latexmk + biber to match the Docker build
• Keep your .tex and .bib files committed; the .gitignore already excludes generated PDFs and build artifacts

MIT — fork freely.