# The library

Everything earmark makes lives in one folder you choose, your **library**.

    ~/pCloud Drive/public/audio/     <- the library
      earmark.toml                   its settings
      feed.xml   episodes.json       the feed
      cover.jpg
      text/
        attention-is-all-you-need.md   the words, yours to edit
      audio/
        attention-is-all-you-need.mp3  the narration


# It should be a folder on the public web

Podcast apps need a URL they can fetch without logging in. earmark writes files; your folder does the rest. A pCloud public folder, a public S3 or R2 bucket, an nginx docroot, a GitHub Pages repo. All fine.

What matters is that appending a path to your `base_url` resolves: `<base_url>/audio/some-paper.mp3` has to be a real URL. Dropbox, Box, Google Drive and OneDrive cannot do that, however much storage you are paying them for. [Where a library can live](publishing.md#where-a-library-can-live) has the full list.

This is why writing the MP3 *is* publishing it, for most setups. If your folder is already on the web, there is nothing to upload. If it isn't, one line of shell closes the gap. See [Publishing anywhere](publishing.md).


# `earmark.toml` lives inside it

There is no `library =` setting anywhere, and there never will be, because **the library is the folder its config sits in**. Two things follow:

- **A library is portable.** Move the folder, rename it, put it on another machine, and nothing breaks, because nothing outside it names its location.
- **Multiple libraries are free.** They need no registry and no configuration beyond making them, because `cd` is how you switch.

Nothing is stored outside the library except the model download, the synthesis cache, and one line naming your default library.


# How earmark finds the library you mean

In order:

1.  `--library PATH`
2.  `$EARMARK_LIBRARY`
3.  an `earmark.toml` in the working directory or any parent
4.  the default recorded by `earmark init`

Rule 3 is the one that makes the everyday case pleasant: `cd` into a library and every command acts on it, the way `git` works. Rule 4 is what makes `earmark publish paper.pdf` work from your Downloads folder.

`--library` works on either side of the verb:

``` bash
earmark --library ~/public/papers publish paper.pdf
earmark publish paper.pdf --library ~/public/papers
```


# Several libraries

Separate feeds (papers, fiction, things for the commute) need no setup beyond creating them:

``` bash
earmark init ~/public/papers  --base-url https://example.com/papers
earmark init ~/public/fiction --base-url https://example.com/fiction --no-default

cd ~/public/fiction && earmark publish a-novel.epub   # the fiction feed
```

`--no-default` is what stops the second `init` from stealing the default the first one set.

To see which library you are acting on, and every path in play:

``` bash
earmark config --show
```