How do I add a bibliography in Typst?

Put your references in a .bib or Hayagriva .yml file next to the document, call #bibliography("references.bib") where the list should appear, and cite entries with @key. Only cited entries are printed by default.

How do I use APA style in a Typst bibliography?

Pass the style argument: #bibliography("references.bib", style: "american-psychological-association"). Typst ships the CSL style set, so "ieee", "chicago-author-date", and "nature" work the same way; you can also pass a path to your own .csl file.

How do I add the bibliography to the table of contents in Typst?

The bibliography function takes a title argument, and that title is a heading, so #outline() picks it up automatically. If you set your own title with #bibliography(..., title: [References]) it appears in the outline like any other heading.

How do I include a references.bib file in Typst?

Pass its path to #bibliography, relative to the document: #bibliography("references.bib"), or #bibliography("bib/references.bib") for a subfolder. Typst reads BibTeX .bib files directly, so a file exported from Zotero or Mendeley works unchanged.

Why does nothing appear in my Typst bibliography?

By default Typst prints only entries you actually cited. If the list is empty, either no @key matched, or the keys in the document differ from the keys in the .bib file. Pass full: true to print every entry in the file regardless of citations.

Do I need to run biber or bibtex with Typst?

No. Typst resolves citations in the same compile run, so there is no separate biber or bibtex pass and no repeated compiles to get cross-references right.

How to add a bibliography and citations in Typst

Keep references in a .bib (or Hayagriva .yml) file, cite them inline with @key, and call #bibliography("references.bib") where the reference list should appear. Choose a style with the style argument — there is no separate biber or bibtex step.

Transformers @vaswani2017 changed everything.

#bibliography("references.bib")

A sentence citing Vaswani, followed by a generated Bibliography section listing the entry.

A complete document you can paste

Two files: main.typ and references.bib beside it.

// main.typ
#set page(paper: "a4", margin: 2.5cm)
#set heading(numbering: "1.")

= Introduction

Attention-based models @vaswani2017 replaced recurrence, and deep
residual learning @he2016 made very deep networks trainable.

#bibliography("references.bib", style: "ieee", title: [References])

An A4 page with a numbered Introduction heading, two citations in the text, and an IEEE-style References list.

% references.bib
@inproceedings{vaswani2017,
  title     = {Attention Is All You Need},
  author    = {Vaswani, Ashish and others},
  booktitle = {NeurIPS},
  year      = {2017},
}

@inproceedings{he2016,
  title     = {Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition},
  author    = {He, Kaiming and others},
  booktitle = {CVPR},
  year      = {2016},
}

Citation styles

style accepts any of the bundled CSL styles by name, or a path to your own .csl file. The common ones:

#bibliography("references.bib", style: "ieee")
#bibliography("references.bib", style: "american-psychological-association")  // APA
#bibliography("references.bib", style: "chicago-author-date")
#bibliography("references.bib", style: "nature")
#bibliography("references.bib", style: "my-journal.csl")

Citation forms

@key is the normal citation. Use #cite when you need to add a page locator or change the form — form: "prose" renders the author as part of the sentence.

Standard: @vaswani2017
With a page: #cite(<vaswani2017>, supplement: [p. 4])
In prose:   #cite(<vaswani2017>, form: "prose") showed that ...

Three citation forms rendered in turn: a standard bracketed citation, one with a page supplement, and a prose citation naming the author inline.

The reference list and the outline

title sets the list's heading, and because it is a real heading #outline() includes it automatically. Pass full: true to print every entry in the file rather than only the cited ones.

#outline()

// ... document ...

#bibliography("references.bib", title: [References], full: false)

The complete argument list is in the Typst bibliography reference.

In KL studioyour library doubles as your bibliography. Type #cite( and KL autocompletes #cite(<slug>) from the papers and notes you have imported, so there is no .bib file to hand-maintain. See the reference-management guide for the whole workflow, or the Typst basics guide to get started.

Common questions

How do I add a bibliography in Typst?: Put your references in a .bib or Hayagriva .yml file next to the document, call #bibliography("references.bib") where the list should appear, and cite entries with @key. Only cited entries are printed by default.
How do I use APA style in a Typst bibliography?: Pass the style argument: #bibliography("references.bib", style: "american-psychological-association"). Typst ships the CSL style set, so "ieee", "chicago-author-date", and "nature" work the same way; you can also pass a path to your own .csl file.
How do I add the bibliography to the table of contents in Typst?: The bibliography function takes a title argument, and that title is a heading, so #outline() picks it up automatically. If you set your own title with #bibliography(..., title: [References]) it appears in the outline like any other heading.
How do I include a references.bib file in Typst?: Pass its path to #bibliography, relative to the document: #bibliography("references.bib"), or #bibliography("bib/references.bib") for a subfolder. Typst reads BibTeX .bib files directly, so a file exported from Zotero or Mendeley works unchanged.
Why does nothing appear in my Typst bibliography?: By default Typst prints only entries you actually cited. If the list is empty, either no @key matched, or the keys in the document differ from the keys in the .bib file. Pass full: true to print every entry in the file regardless of citations.
Do I need to run biber or bibtex with Typst?: No. Typst resolves citations in the same compile run, so there is no separate biber or bibtex pass and no repeated compiles to get cross-references right.