Scrod

🐟 Worse Haskell documentation.

Summary

Scrod is a documentation generator for Haskell modules, similar to Haddock.

• Produces JSON or HTML output
• Supports Literate Haskell (Bird and LaTeX style), Backpack signatures, and CPP
• Uses GHC and Haddock (the library) behind the scenes
• Only parses the module; it doesn't rename or type check, so it's fast but limited

You can try it out in the browser at scrod.fyi.

Installation

Download the latest release from GitHub Releases. Each release includes:

Asset	Description
scrod-*-linux.tar.gz	Linux binary
scrod-*-darwin.tar.gz	macOS binary
scrod-*-win32.tar.gz	Windows binary
scrod-*.vsix	VSCode extension for live documentation preview
scrod-*-wasm.tar.gz	WASM build (for use in browsers)
scrod-*-wasi.tar.gz	WASI build (for use with runtimes like Wasmtime)
scrod-*-schema.json	JSON schema for the JSON output format
scrod-*.tar.gz	Source tarball

Or build from source with GHC 9.14 and Cabal:

cabal install scrod

Usage

Scrod reads from stdin and writes to stdout:

scrod < MyModule.hs                # JSON output (default)
scrod --format html < MyModule.hs  # HTML output

Options

$ scrod --help
scrod version 0.2026.2.18
<https://scrod.fyi>

  -h[BOOL]  --help[=BOOL]           Shows the help.
            --version[=BOOL]        Shows the version.
            --format=FORMAT         Sets the output format (json or html).
            --ghc-option=OPTION     Sets a GHC option (e.g. -XOverloadedStrings).
            --literate[=BOOL]       Treats the input as Literate Haskell.
            --schema[=BOOL]         Shows the JSON output schema.
            --signature[=BOOL]      Treats the input as a Backpack signature.

• -h, --help: Prints the help then exits.
• --version: Prints the version then exits.
• --format: Sets the output format. Either json (the default) or html.
• --ghc-option: Passes an option to the GHC parser (e.g. -XOverloadedStrings). Can be given multiple times.
• --literate: Treats the input as literate Haskell, either Bird or LaTeX style.
• --schema: Prints the JSON output schema then exits.
• --signature: Treats the input as a Backpack signature.

Boolean flags accept an optional =BOOL argument (True or False). Without the argument, the flag is set to True. This lets you override earlier flags, e.g. --literate --literate=False.