CVCreator

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Author's note: This app is completely free and will always be. Just as a service to the community where sometimes job searching can be daunting & hard where even a single cent matters. Therefore, I don't see any ethical justification behind putting a price tag on high quality CV creation. That's my exact reason for creating this application.

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Desktop-first, local-first CV creator built as a Tauri + React + TypeScript monorepo.

Use it to build CVs with a live preview, explicit file save/load, theme and layout controls, custom sections, and HTML/PDF export.

Getting Started

Easiest install from Releases Just download, install and launch.

Requirements

• Node.js 20+ with npm
• Rust toolchain for the Tauri desktop runtime
• Tauri system dependencies for your platform if you want to run the native shell
• Windows if you want to produce the current installer target

Install

npm install

Run In Browser Dev Mode

npm run dev

Run As Desktop App

npm run tauri:dev

Build Desktop Installer

npm run tauri:build

That writes the Windows NSIS installer to apps/desktop/src-tauri/target/release/bundle/nsis.

Validation

Run the workspace checks from the repository root:

npm run typecheck
npm run build
cargo check --manifest-path apps/desktop/src-tauri/Cargo.toml

Release & Installer

Windows installer creation follows the same overall pattern as UniGit:

• semantic-release runs from .github/workflows/release.yml on pushes to main
• a Windows release job checks out the new tag, imports a PFX certificate, builds the signed NSIS installer, and uploads the installer assets to the GitHub release
• local Windows packaging uses the PowerShell helpers in scripts/windows

Useful local commands:

npm run release:windows:cert -- -Password "choose-a-password"
npm run release:windows

The local release build emits installer artifacts under apps/desktop/src-tauri/target/release/bundle/nsis.

GitHub Actions expects these secrets:

• WINDOWS_CERTIFICATE: base64-encoded .pfx file
• WINDOWS_CERTIFICATE_PASSWORD: password for the .pfx
• CVCREATOR_TIMESTAMP_URL: optional RFC 3161 timestamp URL used during signing

Save / Load Behavior

• Save CV and Load CV manage any number of explicit document files.
• Document files are stored as .cvcreator.json.
• In Tauri, save/load uses native dialogs and Rust file IO.
• In browser dev mode, the app uses browser file APIs when available and falls back to upload/download behavior.

Export

• Export HTML writes the rendered document HTML.
• Export PDF uses the same rendering path as preview/export HTML, then captures it for a real PDF download.

Disclaimer

This project is mostly vibe-coded with GPT-5.4 via GitHub Copilot, with human oversight, iteration, and manual fixes around the core flows. Use it at your own discretion.