md-reader

A Markdown reader and editor built for the AI era. Re-renders as Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor writes. Edit visually, without ever seeing ## or **.

Interactive website · Beta builds

Releases · Report a bug · Request a feature

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Why this exists

Every AI tool — Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Cursor — writes in Markdown by default. That's great, until you actually want to read the output without alt-tabbing into a code editor, or edit it without your non-technical teammates panicking at the ## and ** symbols.

md-reader does two things really well:

1. Reading. Open a .md file by double-clicking it. The app re-renders live while your AI is still writing. No vaults, no folders to set up, no "trust this workspace" prompts.
2. Editing. A WYSIWYG mode (called Smart edit) where markdown syntax is never visible. You type into the rendered view like it's a Notion or Word document. Bold, italics, headings, lists, tables, links — all there, none of the symbols. Saves clean markdown back to disk.

Local-only. No telemetry. No accounts. MIT licensed. ~10 MB installer (Tauri 2 — not a 200 MB Electron app).

Quick start (60 seconds)

1. Download the installer for your OS from the badges above.
2. Double-click any .md file. md-reader opens with the file rendered.
3. Press Ctrl + E (Cmd + E on Mac) to switch to Smart edit. Type into the rendered view like a Word doc.
4. Ctrl + S to save back to disk. Reopen the file in any other editor — it's clean markdown.

That's the whole loop.

What you can do with it

1. Read AI-generated markdown as it streams

Open a file in md-reader, kick off a Claude or ChatGPT task that writes to the same file. The viewer re-renders as the content arrives, with a brief highlight on the lines that just changed. Smart-scroll keeps you anchored — it only follows the edit if you're already near it, so you don't get yanked away mid-read.

2. Edit visually, like a Word doc

Hit Ctrl + E and the file becomes editable in place. The markdown symbols disappear:

• Headings render at their proper size — no # prefix in sight
• Bold / italic / strikethrough show their actual styling, not the **/*/~~ wrappers
• Links look like links, click the toolbar pencil to change the URL
• Bullet and numbered lists with proper indentation, hit Tab/Shift-Tab to nest
• Tables with right-click row/column controls
• Code blocks with syntax highlighting
• Slash menu — type / on a blank line to insert a heading, list, table, divider, etc.

On save, you get clean markdown back to disk. Round-trip safe — reopen the file in VS Code or any other editor and it's exactly the markdown you'd expect.

If you ever need the raw source, hit the Raw sub-toggle next to the Edit button. Power users keep their muscle memory; non-technical users never have to look at the syntax.

3. Multiple files, multiple windows

Drop a folder of .md files onto the window — each becomes a tab. Drag a tab outside the window to tear it off into its own native window. Tab order persists across restarts.

4. Adjust how wide the content sits

Ctrl + ] and Ctrl + [ widen and narrow the content column. Ctrl + \ toggles full-window width. No locked narrow band like some other readers.

5. Side panel: file browser + outline

Ctrl + B toggles the file browser. The outline (📑 button) shows your document's headings — click to jump. Both can resize by dragging the right edge.

Keyboard shortcuts

Ctrl on Windows/Linux, Cmd on macOS. md-reader binds both, so muscle memory transfers either way.

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl + T / Ctrl + O	Open file in new tab
Ctrl + W	Close active tab
Ctrl + Tab / Ctrl + Shift + Tab	Cycle tabs
Ctrl + E	Toggle View ↔ Smart edit
Ctrl + S	Save (edit mode)
Ctrl + F	Find in document
Ctrl + ,	Settings
Ctrl + B	Toggle files panel
Ctrl + + / Ctrl + - / Ctrl + 0	Zoom in / out / reset
Ctrl + ] / Ctrl + [	Wider / narrower content column
Ctrl + \	Toggle full-window content width
Esc	Close find / settings / file menu

Settings worth knowing about

Ctrl + , to open. A few that matter:

• Theme — Auto (follows your system), Light, or Dark.
• Default edit mode — Smart (WYSIWYG) or Raw (markdown source). You can always flip per-tab via the toolbar.
• Content width — slider from 40 to 160 characters, or "Full window" for wide docs.
• Smart-diff (optional) — paste an Anthropic API key and md-reader can summarise what changed in a file since you opened it. Off by default; nothing is sent unless you enable it.
• Experimental features — for power users only. Live AI edit tracking (the 📡 toolbar button) and Diff mode (🔍) live here. Off by default to keep the toolbar calm.

Give feedback

Pick the channel that fits:

• Found a bug? → Open a bug report. A short repro is gold.
• Want a feature? → Open a feature request. Tell me the workflow that's broken, not just the fix you want.
• General "what should this become?" or "this idea is fuzzy" → Discussions (if enabled).

I read everything. PRs welcome.

Build from source (devs only)

Requirements

• Node.js 20+
• Rust 1.78+ (via rustup)
• Platform C++ toolchain:
  • Windows: Microsoft C++ Build Tools + WebView2 (preinstalled on Win10/11)
  • macOS: Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install)
  • Linux: webkit2gtk-4.1, libgtk-3-dev, libayatana-appindicator3-dev, librsvg2-dev

Commands

git clone https://github.com/kumaradarsh1993/md-reader
cd md-reader
npm install
npm run tauri dev      # dev mode with HMR + native window
npm run tauri build    # produces installer in src-tauri/target/release/bundle/

Frontend-only (no Rust required, useful for UI work):

npm run dev    # Vite dev server on :1430
npm run check  # svelte-check

Stack

• Backend: Tauri 2 + Rust. Markdown rendering via comrak with syntect-highlighted code blocks. File watching via notify with an mtime poll fallback for cloud-drive paths (OneDrive's reparse points break inotify).
• Frontend: SvelteKit (Svelte 5 runes) + Vite. Smart edit mode via Milkdown (a ProseMirror-based WYSIWYG that round-trips through remark AST — guaranteed clean markdown out). Raw edit via CodeMirror 6. Math via KaTeX, diagrams via Mermaid, both lazy-loaded.
• Tabs: Stored in tauri-plugin-store so they persist across restarts. Tear-out spawns a fresh md-reader.exe process per torn-out window (more reliable on Windows than in-process window-spawn).

Project layout

src-tauri/                      Rust backend (Tauri 2)
  src/markdown.rs               comrak + syntect → HTML, with data-sourcepos
  src/watcher.rs                notify-debouncer-full, watches parent dir
  src/commands.rs               IPC commands (file ops, list_dir, spawn_window)
  src/lib.rs                    plugins, CLI args, single-instance
  examples/inspect.rs           diagnostic harness — dump rendered HTML

src/                            SvelteKit frontend (Svelte 5 runes)
  routes/+page.svelte           app shell
  lib/Viewer.svelte             rendered output + live-follow
  lib/SmartEditor.svelte        WYSIWYG editor (Milkdown / Crepe, lazy)
  lib/Editor.svelte             raw markdown editor (CodeMirror 6, lazy)
  lib/TabBar.svelte             tabs with drag-tear-out
  lib/LeftPanel.svelte          Lightroom-style resizable panel
  lib/FileBrowser.svelte        single-level dir tree
  lib/Toc.svelte                document outline
  lib/Find.svelte               Ctrl+F search
  lib/Settings.svelte           settings panel
  lib/post-render.ts            heading id assignment + lazy KaTeX/Mermaid
  lib/tabs-store.svelte.ts      tabs state (open/close/reorder/persist)
  lib/settings-store.svelte.ts  persisted settings via tauri-plugin-store

docs/                           GitHub Pages landing site (static)
test-fixtures/                  round-trip fixture for smart-edit testing

See CHANGELOG.md for release notes.

License

MIT — see LICENSE if present, or the license field in package.json.