Introducing Native PDF Rendering for Security Reports #
The reports a security team delivers to its stakeholders or clients are ultimately what build its authority. To establish trust, those documents must be consistent, stylistically aligned, and structured so the actual message shines through clearly.
But maintaining that visual standard programmatically is notoriously difficult. Historically, security teams have been forced to choose between two bad options: manually formatting documents in word processors, or wrestling with rigid LaTeX templates (like the Eisvogel template commonly used for pentest reports) that require specialized knowledge to customize and often end up looking like academic papers.
To solve this, we have officially rolled out the production version of BlackStork’s native PDF rendering engine.
Reporting as Code: Separating Logic from Presentation #
A core principle of the BlackStork platform is the strict separation of data logic from presentation.
When building a BlackStork template, you define your data queries, document structure, and content generation rules independently of how the document will eventually look. When new data comes in, you simply re-evaluate the template to generate an updated report.
To handle the presentation layer, we use format blocks. Format blocks intercept the evaluated data at the end of the pipeline and wrap it in the specified visual layout, compiling the document into your target format.
By using standard HTML and CSS under the hood, our new PDF formatter gives security teams precise control over page layouts, typography, and the details essential to corporate branding. The output is a ready-to-share PDF document generated entirely from code - with zero manual formatting or LaTeX required.
CLI vs. SaaS Capabilities #
We designed blackstork-cli - our source-available execution engine - to be a fast, lightweight binary optimized for local environments and CI/CD pipelines.
To keep the CLI footprint lean, it natively supports compiling documents into Markdown and HTML formats (see Available Formatters).
Because high-fidelity, programmatic PDF rendering requires a significantly heavier dependency stack and processing overhead, the native PDF formatter is currently available exclusively within the managed BlackStork SaaS platform.
SaaS users can now define a format pdf block to seamlessly route their evaluated reports into the new PDF engine alongside their standard Markdown and HTML outputs.
Community Templates #
We are actively building an open-source library of highly styled HTML and PDF templates for various SOC, CTI, and Pentesting use cases. You can explore the code and see how we structure our formatting blocks by following the blackstork-templates repository on GitHub.
Automate your reporting pipeline #
If your team or MSSP is losing critical hours every week manually compiling and formatting PDF reports for clients or stakeholders, we can automate this pipeline for you.
We are currently onboarding a select group of security teams as Design Partners. Partners receive 3 months of free access to the SaaS platform and white-glove engineering support to integrate their specific data sources and build out custom, branded templates.