From 4807cc846b205a033e79fcf5a8e2529926589065 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: luminmarketinggroup-sys <luminmarketinggroup@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2026 09:10:32 -0600
Subject: [PATCH] docs: add minimal TeX setup instructions (#60)

Document a user-level TinyTeX path for minimal LaTeX installs, list the template packages needed by the stock CV and cover-letter templates, and add local smoke-test commands for lualatex/xelatex.
---
 README.md |  2 +-
 SETUP.md  | 45 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 46 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 8547b37..49d8b0a 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -43,7 +43,7 @@ The framework encodes career guidance best practices, including structured evalu
 - [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code) (CLI)
 - Python 3.10+
 - [Bun](https://bun.sh) (for Danish job search CLI tools)
-- LaTeX distribution with `lualatex` and `xelatex`: [TeX Live](https://tug.org/texlive/) or [MiKTeX](https://miktex.org/). The CV compiles with `lualatex` (pdflatex often fails on modern MiKTeX installs with `fontawesome5` font-expansion errors); the cover letter compiles with `xelatex` because `cover.cls` requires `fontspec`.
+- LaTeX distribution with `lualatex` and `xelatex`: [TeX Live](https://tug.org/texlive/), [MacTeX](https://tug.org/mactex/), [TinyTeX](https://yihui.org/tinytex/), or [MiKTeX](https://miktex.org/). The CV compiles with `lualatex` (pdflatex often fails on modern MiKTeX installs with `fontawesome5` font-expansion errors); the cover letter compiles with `xelatex` because `cover.cls` requires `fontspec`. If using a minimal TeX install such as TinyTeX or BasicTeX, install the extra packages listed in [SETUP.md](SETUP.md#minimal-tex-install-tinytexbasictex).
 - Optional: `pdftotext` from [poppler](https://poppler.freedesktop.org/) (macOS: `brew install poppler`, Debian/Ubuntu: `apt install poppler-utils`, Windows: `choco install poppler`) — used by `/apply`'s ATS parseability check on the compiled CV. If missing, the check degrades gracefully to a visual keyword review.
 
 ## Quick start
diff --git a/SETUP.md b/SETUP.md
index 687e922..cf2aef8 100644
--- a/SETUP.md
+++ b/SETUP.md
@@ -52,6 +52,51 @@ Install a LaTeX distribution to compile the generated `.tex` files to PDF:
 
 The CV compiles with `lualatex` (pdflatex often fails on modern MiKTeX installs with `fontawesome5` font-expansion errors). The cover letter compiles with `xelatex` because `cover.cls` requires `fontspec` for its custom Lato/Raleway fonts.
 
+#### Minimal TeX install: TinyTeX/BasicTeX
+
+Full TeX distributions work out of the box, but minimal distributions need a few extra packages before the stock templates compile.
+
+On macOS, a user-level TinyTeX install avoids a system-wide installer and does not require `sudo`:
+
+```bash
+curl -fsSL https://yihui.org/tinytex/install-bin-unix.sh -o /tmp/tinytex-install-bin-unix.sh
+sh /tmp/tinytex-install-bin-unix.sh /tmp --no-path
+export PATH="$HOME/Library/TinyTeX/bin/universal-darwin:$PATH"
+```
+
+Then install the template dependencies:
+
+```bash
+tlmgr install \
+  moderncv fontawesome5 fontawesome6 academicons import luatexbase pgf \
+  titlesec textpos xltxtra xunicode cite realscripts
+```
+
+For BasicTeX/MacTeX, make sure the TeX binary directory is on `PATH` first (for example via `/Library/TeX/texbin`), then run the same `tlmgr install ...` command.
+
+Quick smoke tests after setup:
+
+```bash
+cd cv && lualatex -interaction=nonstopmode -halt-on-error main_example.tex && cd ..
+
+SMOKE_DIR="$(mktemp -d /tmp/ai-job-cover-smoke.XXXXXX)"
+cp -R cover_letters/cover.cls cover_letters/OpenFonts "$SMOKE_DIR/"
+cat >"$SMOKE_DIR/cover_smoke.tex" <<'EOF'
+\documentclass[]{cover}
+\begin{document}
+\namesection{Test}{Candidate}{test@example.com}
+\companyname{Example Company}
+\companyaddress{123 Hiring Street\\Example City}
+\currentdate{\today}
+\lettercontent{Dear Hiring Manager,}
+\lettercontent{This smoke test verifies that xelatex can load cover.cls and the bundled fonts.}
+\closing{Sincerely,}
+\signature{Test Candidate}
+\end{document}
+EOF
+(cd "$SMOKE_DIR" && xelatex -interaction=nonstopmode -halt-on-error cover_smoke.tex)
+```
+
 ### Optional: pdftotext (for the ATS check)
 
 `/apply` runs an ATS parseability check on the compiled CV: it extracts the PDF's text layer and verifies contact details, reading order, and keyword coverage the way an applicant-tracking system sees them. This uses `pdftotext` from [poppler](https://poppler.freedesktop.org/), which is not part of TeX distributions: