Congratulations on starting your own lab!!!! Good luck!

(I'd also like to note that I had Claude 4.5 and ChatGPT 5.1 Codex running on this problem and all they did is mess around with the template.yml and my YAML header - they didn't help at all)

Slowly copy-pasted the non-functioning .qmd into this new minimal yaml until both files seem identical - and the copied-into version compiles perfectly fine.
I'm going to lie down a bit.

an absolutely minimum .qmd with just the YAML header renders fine. AHHHHHH

Oh seems like targets supports qs2 and will autoswitch, it's just that my previous runs were all in qs format.

What if I'm on wd40's payroll. Paid for posting misinformation

I had one this morning!!! They got my daily tribute

I'm too poor for that :(

Once had a credit card PIN that made a pleasing shape on the keypad when typed in, always reminded me of tetris. Can I join