Body link references missing document
Q-13-4 — Body link references missing document
A link in document body content points at a project file that is not in the render index.
What this means
When you write [See report](report.qmd) in a Quarto document,
the renderer rewrites the link so the rendered page links to
report.html (the output filename) instead of the source. The
rewrite requires the target to be in the project index — Quarto
has to know the target will exist. This error fires when the
target name does not appear in the index. The link still
renders but with the original .qmd path, which the published
site will treat as broken.
This is the warning you will see most often if you are writing cross-references to pages that have not been authored yet.
Why this happens
Common causes:
- A typo in the link target.
- A link to a page that is planned but not yet created — this happens during iterative authoring.
- A link to a deleted page whose references were not cleaned up.
- An underscore-prefixed file linked from a non-excluded one — the target is intentionally not in the render set.
How to fix
Make sure the target exists in the project and is in the render set. If you are linking to a page that does not exist yet, either create a stub for it now or accept the warning until the page lands.