# What's New in Retype v4.2

By

@geoffreymcgill

●

In 

release

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Published 2026-03-10

Retype v4.2 adds new RSS controls, customizable labels, new search indexing controls, Card component upgrades, and a few CLI updates that make publishing easier to fine tune.

See the full Changelog and Feature Log for a detailed list of updates in the v4.2 release.

Retype v4.2 introduces more control over the generated RSS feed for your blog via the new blog.rss project settings.

The new rss settings give you direct control over how many posts the rss feed includes, the title, description, and a custom copyright statement:

blog:
  title: Retype Blog
  rss:
    maxResults: 25
    title: Release Notes
    description: Product announcements, release notes, and shipping updates
    copyright: © Copyright {{ date.now.year }}. All rights reserved.
    imageUrl: /static/retype-feed.png

Configuring the maxResults is useful when you have a deep blog archive, but your feed should stay focused on the latest posts.

If you have blog, Retype now includes the rss meta tag on all pages to help readers discover the feed faster.

v4.2 adds a project-level labels setting so you can customize all labels and messages for your project.

labels:
  default:
    search_input_placeholder: Search the docs
    toc_contents_label: On this page

  fr:
    search_input_placeholder: Rechercher dans la documentation
    toc_contents_label: Sur cette page

Use labels.default for shared wording, then add a specific locale group, such as fr, when you need to customize for a specific language.

All label keys are available in the translations configuration reference.

locale can also point at your own label collections, not just built-in language collections.

locale: partner

labels:
  default:
    search_input_placeholder: Search docs

  partner:
    search_input_placeholder: Search partner docs
    text_next: Next step

That makes it easy to give a partner portal, support site, or internal handbook its own voice while keeping most labels shared.

v4.2 adds search.exclude and search.include so you can control what lands in the search index without changing what gets published.

If you want to keep a section such as /blog out of search, the config stays simple:

search:
  exclude:
    - "/blog"

And if you want to start from the opposite direction, search.include can opt a path back in after a broader exclude:

search:
  exclude:
    - "*"
  include:
    - "/blog"

This is useful when only part of a mixed-content site should be searchable.

v4.2 adds created and lastUpdated page front matter settings.

Use created when you want to preserve when a page first went live, and use lastUpdated when readers should see that the page was reviewed or refreshed later.

For a long-lived guide or migration page, the front matter can stay simple:

---
created: 2024-05-14
lastUpdated: 2026-03-01
---

That preserves when the page first went live while still surfacing a recent update.

lastUpdated can also be filled automatically from Git commit metadata and rendered in the page footer. By default, Retype will try to add the last updated date using the latest committer metadata when full Git history is available. The by value is available too, but it is off by default.

lastUpdated:
  date:
    enabled: true
    source: committer
  by:
    enabled: true
    source: author

This is useful when you want the footer to show both the most recent commit date and who made the change, without maintaining those values by hand.

- uses: actions/checkout@v6
  with:
    fetch-depth: 0

Manual page values and generated Git values are both supported, but they are not mixed on the same page. If you manually set lastUpdated or lastUpdatedBy, Retype uses those manual values for that page instead of filling in the missing pieces from Git.

It works well for long-lived guides, release notes, and migration pages that continue to evolve after launch.

v4.2 adds a new compact Card layout and new customizable properties such as title, text, icon, image, kicker, and footer.

Use the compact layout when you want a smaller card without an image.

[!card title="Start here" text="Create your first Retype project." icon=":rocket:" layout="compact"](/guides/getting-started.md)
[!card compact](/guides/installation.md)

The default Card component layout shows an image on the left, vertical places the image above, and compact removes the image to tighten up the footprint.

You can also create an array of cards from list pairs by using a wikilink as the top-level list item and a nested list item for the description.

The top-level link must be a wikilink to a local page in your project. The nested text is always configured manually and is not pulled from the linked page.

- [[Changelog]]
  - Review the full list of changes included in the latest Retype release.
- [[Feature Log]]
  - Explore the headline features and improvements added across recent releases.
- [[Community]]
  - Learn about the free community key and other community resources.

A new debounce option for retype start has been added to help reduce rebuild churn when one edit turns into a burst of file changes. Some markdown editors can be rapidly auto-saving the file you're working on, which can trigger multiple rebuilds in quick succession.

With debounce, Retype waits briefly for the change burst to settle, then rebuilds once instead of reacting to every intermediate update.

To delay rebuilds, add a --debounce flag and value on the command line. The following sample demonstrates how to add a 400 millisecond debounce to the retype start command:

retype start --debounce 400

If you would like to configure a debounce value as the default for the project without having to pass the --debounce flag every time, you can add the setting to your retype.yml file. The following sample demonstrates how to configure a 400 ms debounce to be added when running retype start:

start:
  debounce: 400

Retype v4.2 adds the retype stop CLI command to make it easier to stop a local server that was started using retype start.

Run retype stop from the same command line location that your started the project from, and Retype will stop the server for that project.

When you want the bigger picture, retype stop --list returns a list of all the currently running Retype servers.

That makes restarts and cleanup safer when you have multiple preview servers running locally.

Retype v4.2 brings better feed controls, more flexible UI labeling, tighter search indexing controls, and smoother local preview workflows. If you run a blog with Retype or maintain docs across different audiences, this release gives you more control without pushing that complexity into custom code.

Install or upgrade Retype to try the latest improvements, and keep the feedback coming on X or in GitHub Issues.