3 ms·

Show HN: Marky – A lightweight Markdown viewer for agentic coding

75 points by GRVYDEV 6mo ago

Hey HN, In this age of agentic coding I've found myself spending a lot of time reviewing markdown files. Whether it's plans or documentation that I've asked my agent to generate for me, it seems that I spend more time reading markdown than code. I've tried a few different solutions to make it easier to read such as Obsidian however I've found their Vault system to be quite limiting for this use case and I've found TUI solutions to not quite be as friendly to read as I've wanted so I made Marky. Marky is a lightweight desktop application that makes it incredibly easy to read and track your markdown files. It also has a helpful cli so you can just run marky FILENAME and have the app open to the md file that you pointed it at. I've been using the daily over the past week and I really enjoy it so I figured I'd share it. Here's a video if you want to check out a demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGBxt8uOVjc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGBxt8uOVjc. I have plans to add more features such as incorporating agentic tools such as claude code and codex into the UI as well as developing a local git diff reviewer to allow me to do local code review before pushing up to git. I'd love to hear your thoughts and any feature suggestions you may have :)

hizihic 6mo ago
[flagged]
desireco42 6mo ago
Definitely appreciate this. I already have Typora which is commercial but fantastic product so I don't really need another viewer but others for sure will. Glad you used Tauri to make this. I will check it out.
- GRVYDEV 6mo ago
  Oh nice! I’ve never checked out Typora before I’ll take a look as well
- Arubis 6mo ago
  Can +1 Typora, it's quite excellent.
- mech422 6mo ago
  I tend to use 'bat' or 'glow' though I've tried 'mdlook' and 'mdcat' as well.
  - GRVYDEV 6mo ago
    I live in my terminal but for some reason any TUI markdown viewers just don’t do it for me
    - mech422 6mo ago
      Yeah - I've tried a bunch of them, and nothing's really perfect but those seem to be good enough for lightweight use.
_andrei_ 6mo ago
ha, nice - had the same need, i leveraged fumadocs for the ui part https://github.com/3rd/mdreader https://github.com/3rd/mdreader
- GRVYDEV 6mo ago
  Awesome that’s a super interesting approach
FailMore 6mo ago
I like the folder opening and the idea to integrate Claude is very interesting. I’m also curious to know how you did the document rendering. It looks very good. This problem has risen to the top of many people’s minds at this moment (including mine!). My Show HN for a similar cli + web based solution (https://sdocs.dev https://sdocs.dev) is on the /show page now (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47777633 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47777633). My approach is a little different. I think Markdown might end up being a core document type in the future of work, so I tried to blend Markdown with “Office”-like functionality, such as complex styling and in-browser editing. Despite being in the browser, the content of SDocs rendered Markdown files remain local to you. SDoc urls contain your markdown document's content in compressed base64 in the url fragment (the bit after the `#`): https://sdocs.dev/#md=GzcFAMT...(this https://sdocs.dev/#md=GzcFAMT...(this is the contents of your document)... The url fragment is never sent to the server (see https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/URI/Reference/F https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/URI/Reference/F...: "The fragment is not sent to the server when the URI is requested; it is processed by the client"). The sdocs.dev webapp is purely a client side decoding and rendering engine for the content stored in the url fragment. This also means you can share your .md files privately by sharing the (quite long!) url. Also, I’m sorry I high jacked your post to some degree with this comment. It’s just a little too relevant for me not to leave a comment! I use mine daily too. A solid Markdown renderer definitely makes agentic coding a lot more pleasurable.
yakkomajuri 6mo ago
I did something very similar recently, just made it open source but haven't posted anywhere. https://github.com/yakkomajuri/seams https://github.com/yakkomajuri/seams Run `seams .` in any dir and get a rich markdown editor with image uploads, block editing, tables, etc etc Congrats on launching!
peacemosaic 6mo ago
[dead]
mschulkind 6mo ago
Seems like I'm just part of the club here, but I've also been working on something similar recently. https://vantageapp.dev/ https://vantageapp.dev/ I find connecting understanding between humans and agents is one of the most important parts of the agentic development cycle, and markdown is a great way to handle that. Not only can you point it at an entire directory, you can point it at multiple projects, quick load a project with a keyboard shortcut, and also easily see recent file that changed to help you find the 75th file your agent just wrote for you. Recently, I've started to add a review interface where you can track changes, and add comments for your agent, and then instead of trying to do some complicated integration with an agent, it just has a copy button, and it copies all the comments, which context, and instructions for the agent how to reply. I also find that I generate TONS of markdown junk during development, and I needed a way to handle it and keep it out of the main repository so I built this tool: https://github.com/mschulkind-oss/swarf/ https://github.com/mschulkind-oss/swarf/
- physicles 6mo ago
  Vantage looks great! I’ll try it out this weekend. To do the job that swarf does, I found that the bwrap sandbox I’d been using is the perfect place to mount a folder to catch markdown junk and keep it out of the project’s actual git repo. Works great.
- uptodatenews 6mo ago
  I said just keep it in the repo like scaffolding. Is software ever done? Why remove the dev notes for the future agents? https://github.com/RCSnyder/lights-out-swe https://github.com/RCSnyder/lights-out-swe
msluyter 6mo ago
Somewhat related. I've also been generating lots of markdown files, which I've occasionally wanted to print out (so I can rest my eyes, or just read them somewhere other than my desk.) First class (free) printing support for rendered markdown seems like a lacuna in the overall ecosystem. I'm currently using the "print" plugin for VS Code, which opens rendered markdown in a browser window, which I print from there. Curious if anyone knows of better options?
hbbio 6mo ago
Congrats on shipping! Been also building this slowly, mostly assisting my kids. What they built is Apple-only, since it's a native iOS/macOS app in Swift. It's been a very interesting experience for me, as even capable frontier LLMs still can't write Apple SwiftUI/AppKit properly. They constantly get the bridges wrong, and any feature prompt puts your previous architectural efforts at risk :)
- GRVYDEV 6mo ago
  You should ask them to make it work on windows or Linux once they’re done on Mac :) would be a good lesson for them
robinduckett 6mo ago
I built a similar thing today for my hyprland desktop! https://github.com/robinduckett/hyprmark https://github.com/robinduckett/hyprmark
FergusArgyll 6mo ago
Like many others here, I made this for myself too, but! mine is also named marky!
- GRVYDEV 6mo ago
  Haha awesome. Was the lowest hanging fruit for a name
- robsan 6mo ago
  Mine too!
cetinsert 6mo ago
https://zerodevx.github.io/zero-md/ https://zerodevx.github.io/zero-md/ is the real deal. No react bs.
alsetmusic 6mo ago
First thing that blocks me from adopting it is lack of ability to adjust text size. I increase default text size on web pages and in my terminal. I'm old enough to need that. I can see the text at the default size but it strains my vision and is uncomfortable. Also, needs to be able to resize the columns / sidebars. I like the initial design. Hope you keep adding to it.
- GRVYDEV 6mo ago
  These are great suggestions I’ll get these added tomorrow!
  - GRVYDEV 6mo ago
    Thanks again for this suggestion. I just went and added these features
zmmmmm 6mo ago
seems like vscode + preview is nearly the same? I guess my key issue is, with files getting continuously modified by coding agents, I want really good integration with git and live update features. If the file just got edited, make it easy to see the new parts etc.
- GRVYDEV 6mo ago
  I’m a neovim user so I’ve never used the vscode markdown viewer. One of the things I want to add is the git and live update features though. I think those would be a game changer
- sleazebreeze 6mo ago
  VS codes preview of markdown files scrolls very poorly on my Mac. It jumps around and scrolls slowly through certain sections.
dhruv3006 6mo ago
Interesting this goes well with https://voiden.md/ https://voiden.md/ - maybe we can integrate this - great work man!
- GRVYDEV 6mo ago
  Voiden looks awesome I’ll have to check it out
  - dhruv3006 6mo ago
    yep we too are markdown based but are a api tool !
gknapp 6mo ago
What does this do that Obsidian doesn't already do? I've found that's my typical go to for pairing with Agentic work, and supports Markdown well, alongside tons of other functionality.
- GRVYDEV 6mo ago
  I was using obsidian before this. There were two main frustrations for me with obsidian. First, opening a markdown file that did not live in a vault wasn’t possible. Second there was not a CLI that made it easy to quickly open files
hresvelgr 6mo ago
> A fast, native markdown viewer for macOS built with Tauri v2, React, and markdown-it. Since when is JavaScript native? Tauri may be using the system's web view but it's still a web view. False advertising.
- hnlmorg 6mo ago
  Agreed. And since when is forking a web view “light weight” too? It might be lighter than Electron, but that’s such a low bar that it’s not a brag worth making.
- GRVYDEV 6mo ago
  This isn’t the 90s anymore. Using the systems web view is, in fact, native by definition.
  - jazzypants 6mo ago
    I'm a web developer too, and I would like this to be true, but it really isn't. Words have meaning. "Native" implies that you are *directly* using OS-specific API's. You are not. You built a Cross-Platform Desktop Application using Web APIs. That's okay. You shouldn't lie about that.
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
slava_ 6mo ago
that's really cool! I don't think having this in a separate window adds value. I feel like it's pretty conventional to open something for an agent in the browser. even for the agent itself. for example, ultraplan.
- GRVYDEV 6mo ago
  Thanks! I actually prefer a separate window personally since I find myself always wanting to quickly be able to reference this app. With it being its own application I can quickly use spotlight search to focus the window instead of needing to dig through my browser tabs to find it

75 points by GRVYDEV 6mo ago

hizihic 6mo ago

[flagged]

desireco42 6mo ago

Definitely appreciate this. I already have Typora which is commercial but fantastic product so I don't really need another viewer but others for sure will. Glad you used Tauri to make this. I will check it out.

GRVYDEV 6mo ago
Oh nice! I’ve never checked out Typora before I’ll take a look as well
Arubis 6mo ago
Can +1 Typora, it's quite excellent.
mech422 6mo ago
I tend to use 'bat' or 'glow' though I've tried 'mdlook' and 'mdcat' as well.
- GRVYDEV 6mo ago
  I live in my terminal but for some reason any TUI markdown viewers just don’t do it for me
  - mech422 6mo ago
    Yeah - I've tried a bunch of them, and nothing's really perfect but those seem to be good enough for lightweight use.

_andrei_ 6mo ago

ha, nice - had the same need, i leveraged fumadocs for the ui part https://github.com/3rd/mdreader https://github.com/3rd/mdreader

GRVYDEV 6mo ago
Awesome that’s a super interesting approach

FailMore 6mo ago

I like the folder opening and the idea to integrate Claude is very interesting. I’m also curious to know how you did the document rendering. It looks very good. This problem has risen to the top of many people’s minds at this moment (including mine!). My Show HN for a similar cli + web based solution (https://sdocs.dev https://sdocs.dev) is on the /show page now (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47777633 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47777633). My approach is a little different. I think Markdown might end up being a core document type in the future of work, so I tried to blend Markdown with “Office”-like functionality, such as complex styling and in-browser editing. Despite being in the browser, the content of SDocs rendered Markdown files remain local to you. SDoc urls contain your markdown document's content in compressed base64 in the url fragment (the bit after the `#`): https://sdocs.dev/#md=GzcFAMT...(this https://sdocs.dev/#md=GzcFAMT...(this is the contents of your document)... The url fragment is never sent to the server (see https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/URI/Reference/F https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/URI/Reference/F...: "The fragment is not sent to the server when the URI is requested; it is processed by the client"). The sdocs.dev webapp is purely a client side decoding and rendering engine for the content stored in the url fragment. This also means you can share your .md files privately by sharing the (quite long!) url. Also, I’m sorry I high jacked your post to some degree with this comment. It’s just a little too relevant for me not to leave a comment! I use mine daily too. A solid Markdown renderer definitely makes agentic coding a lot more pleasurable.

yakkomajuri 6mo ago

I did something very similar recently, just made it open source but haven't posted anywhere. https://github.com/yakkomajuri/seams https://github.com/yakkomajuri/seams Run `seams .` in any dir and get a rich markdown editor with image uploads, block editing, tables, etc etc Congrats on launching!

peacemosaic 6mo ago

[dead]

mschulkind 6mo ago

Seems like I'm just part of the club here, but I've also been working on something similar recently. https://vantageapp.dev/ https://vantageapp.dev/ I find connecting understanding between humans and agents is one of the most important parts of the agentic development cycle, and markdown is a great way to handle that. Not only can you point it at an entire directory, you can point it at multiple projects, quick load a project with a keyboard shortcut, and also easily see recent file that changed to help you find the 75th file your agent just wrote for you. Recently, I've started to add a review interface where you can track changes, and add comments for your agent, and then instead of trying to do some complicated integration with an agent, it just has a copy button, and it copies all the comments, which context, and instructions for the agent how to reply. I also find that I generate TONS of markdown junk during development, and I needed a way to handle it and keep it out of the main repository so I built this tool: https://github.com/mschulkind-oss/swarf/ https://github.com/mschulkind-oss/swarf/

physicles 6mo ago
Vantage looks great! I’ll try it out this weekend. To do the job that swarf does, I found that the bwrap sandbox I’d been using is the perfect place to mount a folder to catch markdown junk and keep it out of the project’s actual git repo. Works great.
uptodatenews 6mo ago
I said just keep it in the repo like scaffolding. Is software ever done? Why remove the dev notes for the future agents? https://github.com/RCSnyder/lights-out-swe https://github.com/RCSnyder/lights-out-swe

msluyter 6mo ago

Somewhat related. I've also been generating lots of markdown files, which I've occasionally wanted to print out (so I can rest my eyes, or just read them somewhere other than my desk.) First class (free) printing support for rendered markdown seems like a lacuna in the overall ecosystem. I'm currently using the "print" plugin for VS Code, which opens rendered markdown in a browser window, which I print from there. Curious if anyone knows of better options?

hbbio 6mo ago

Congrats on shipping! Been also building this slowly, mostly assisting my kids. What they built is Apple-only, since it's a native iOS/macOS app in Swift. It's been a very interesting experience for me, as even capable frontier LLMs still can't write Apple SwiftUI/AppKit properly. They constantly get the bridges wrong, and any feature prompt puts your previous architectural efforts at risk :)

GRVYDEV 6mo ago
You should ask them to make it work on windows or Linux once they’re done on Mac :) would be a good lesson for them

robinduckett 6mo ago

I built a similar thing today for my hyprland desktop! https://github.com/robinduckett/hyprmark https://github.com/robinduckett/hyprmark

FergusArgyll 6mo ago

Like many others here, I made this for myself too, but! mine is also named marky!

GRVYDEV 6mo ago
Haha awesome. Was the lowest hanging fruit for a name
robsan 6mo ago
Mine too!

cetinsert 6mo ago

https://zerodevx.github.io/zero-md/ https://zerodevx.github.io/zero-md/ is the real deal. No react bs.

alsetmusic 6mo ago

First thing that blocks me from adopting it is lack of ability to adjust text size. I increase default text size on web pages and in my terminal. I'm old enough to need that. I can see the text at the default size but it strains my vision and is uncomfortable. Also, needs to be able to resize the columns / sidebars. I like the initial design. Hope you keep adding to it.

GRVYDEV 6mo ago
These are great suggestions I’ll get these added tomorrow!
- GRVYDEV 6mo ago
  Thanks again for this suggestion. I just went and added these features

zmmmmm 6mo ago

seems like vscode + preview is nearly the same? I guess my key issue is, with files getting continuously modified by coding agents, I want really good integration with git and live update features. If the file just got edited, make it easy to see the new parts etc.

GRVYDEV 6mo ago
I’m a neovim user so I’ve never used the vscode markdown viewer. One of the things I want to add is the git and live update features though. I think those would be a game changer
sleazebreeze 6mo ago
VS codes preview of markdown files scrolls very poorly on my Mac. It jumps around and scrolls slowly through certain sections.

dhruv3006 6mo ago

Interesting this goes well with https://voiden.md/ https://voiden.md/ - maybe we can integrate this - great work man!

GRVYDEV 6mo ago
Voiden looks awesome I’ll have to check it out
- dhruv3006 6mo ago
  yep we too are markdown based but are a api tool !

gknapp 6mo ago

What does this do that Obsidian doesn't already do? I've found that's my typical go to for pairing with Agentic work, and supports Markdown well, alongside tons of other functionality.

GRVYDEV 6mo ago
I was using obsidian before this. There were two main frustrations for me with obsidian. First, opening a markdown file that did not live in a vault wasn’t possible. Second there was not a CLI that made it easy to quickly open files

hresvelgr 6mo ago

> A fast, native markdown viewer for macOS built with Tauri v2, React, and markdown-it. Since when is JavaScript native? Tauri may be using the system's web view but it's still a web view. False advertising.

hnlmorg 6mo ago
Agreed. And since when is forking a web view “light weight” too? It might be lighter than Electron, but that’s such a low bar that it’s not a brag worth making.
GRVYDEV 6mo ago
This isn’t the 90s anymore. Using the systems web view is, in fact, native by definition.
- jazzypants 6mo ago
  I'm a web developer too, and I would like this to be true, but it really isn't. Words have meaning. "Native" implies that you are *directly* using OS-specific API's. You are not. You built a Cross-Platform Desktop Application using Web APIs. That's okay. You shouldn't lie about that.

deleted 6mo ago

[deleted]

slava_ 6mo ago

that's really cool! I don't think having this in a separate window adds value. I feel like it's pretty conventional to open something for an agent in the browser. even for the agent itself. for example, ultraplan.

GRVYDEV 6mo ago
Thanks! I actually prefer a separate window personally since I find myself always wanting to quickly be able to reference this app. With it being its own application I can quickly use spotlight search to focus the window instead of needing to dig through my browser tabs to find it