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No Input and No Project

cli
No input was given and the current directory is not inside a Quarto project.

Q-7-3 — No Input and No Project

No input was given and the current directory is not inside a Quarto project.

What this means

quarto render with no arguments expects to be run inside a Quarto project — that is, in a directory whose ancestors include a _quarto.yml. Without that anchor and without an explicit input file, Quarto does not know what to render.

Why this happens

Common causes:

  • You meant to render a specific file but forgot the path.
  • You meant to render the whole project but you are running from outside it. Quarto walks upward from the current directory looking for _quarto.yml and gives up if it reaches the filesystem root.
  • The project’s _quarto.yml was deleted (or never created).

How to fix

Either:

  • Pass at least one .qmd path to render a specific file.
  • Change directory into a Quarto project (one with a _quarto.yml at its root) and rerun the command.
  • Create _quarto.yml to turn the current directory into a Quarto project.