Generate Anki Basic and Cloze flashcards

Generate Anki Basic (question-and-answer) and Cloze (fill-in-the-blank) cards from code instead of adding them one at a time in Anki. A Basic note stores front and back fields, which its template uses to generate a question-and-answer card. A Cloze note generates one card for each supported deletion number. This Rust example creates two notes and three cards. Python and Node.js provide the same Note.basic and Note.cloze constructors; see the Python API and Node API.

From the repository root:

cargo run --locked -p ankiforge --example docs_workflow -- target/docs-examples

Open target/docs-examples/cards.apkg in Anki. The Basic question is hola; the Cloze cards separately hide Madrid and Spain.

Author the notes

This function is extracted from the complete executable. Its verify helper checks the successful output’s note/card/media counts.

fn cards(output: &Path) -> anyhow::Result<()> {
    let mut project = Project::new("docs-spanish")?.default_deck("Spanish");
    project.add("hola", Note::basic("hola", "hello"))?;
    project.add(
        "capital",
        Note::cloze("{{c1::Madrid}} is in {{c2::Spain}}.")
            .field("back_extra", "A city and its country."),
    )?;
    let built = project.build(BuildOptions::to(output.join("cards.apkg")))?;
    verify(&built, 2, 3, 0)?;
    Ok(())
}

The first argument to Project::new is a stable namespace. Each add call needs a stable source-record key. Reusing one key for another note fails; no automatic content-based key is assigned. A changed answer under the same key remains the same logical note when building an update from its previous distribution.

Text, fields and card identity

Both Basic and Cloze strings are Text. Use Content::html for intentional HTML; Cloze deletion syntax is still recognized inside Text. back_extra is the built-in Cloze extra field key. Use the same Note::field method for text, HTML, images and sounds.

Use {{c1::answer}} or {{c1::answer::hint}}. A plain sentence supplies no Cloze question. Supported deletion numbers are 1–500; changing numbers can alter card identities. Review such changes through comparison and update policy.

Next, add media, a custom model, or image occlusion.