xiaolai/vmark

An AI friendly markdown editor.

VMark – A Local‑First, AI‑Enabled Plain‑Text Workspace

What it is – VMark is a desktop application that lets you edit a wide variety of plain‑text formats (Markdown, JSON, YAML, TOML, Mermaid, SVG, HTML, source code, …) while keeping the files exactly as they are on disk. The app renders each file in the most useful view – e.g. a GitHub Actions workflow appears as a graph, a Cargo.toml shows a dependency tree – so you can read and edit without a separate conversion step.

Why it matters for AI work – VMark talks the Model‑Context‑Protocol (MCP), a standard that lets large‑language‑model assistants (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Codex, Antigravity, Grok, opencode) read and write the same files you are editing. An AI “genie” can insert code, rewrite prose, or update configuration directly in the file you’re looking at, without a round‑trip to a web UI.

Key features

  • Multi‑format editing – native WYSIWYG Markdown, source‑code syntax highlighting, and tree viewers for JSON/YAML/TOML.
  • Schema‑aware previews – special renderers for known config files (GitHub Actions, Cargo, npm, Poetry, …).
  • AI‑native – one‑click MCP integration for several LLM‑backed assistants; AI can edit inline.
  • Three Markdown modes – WYSIWYG, source‑peek (F5), full source (F6) with CodeMirror 6.
  • Power‑user editing – multi‑cursor, smart tab‑escape, CJK‑aware spacing rules.
  • Local‑first – no cloud sync, no accounts, no telemetry; files stay on your machine.
  • Cross‑platform – macOS (primary, via Homebrew), Windows and Linux binaries are provided.
  • Internationalisation – UI in 10 languages, 6 visual themes.

How to get it

  • macOS: brew install xiaolai/tap/vmark
  • Other OSes: download the appropriate .dmg or binary from the Releases page.

Building from source (for developers) – requires Node 22+, pnpm 10, Rust 1.89+, and Tauri v2. The repo includes scripts to build the MCP side‑car, run the Tauri dev server, and run the full lint‑test‑build pipeline (pnpm check:all).

Community model – The project is “vibe‑coded”: the codebase is generated and maintained by AI under human supervision. Contributions are accepted only as issues; the maintainers let the internal AI fix bugs or add features based on those reports.

License – ISC (permissive, commercial‑friendly).

VMark is a genuine software project that sits at the intersection of plain‑text editing and AI‑assisted development, making it relevant for anyone building or using LLM‑driven workflows.

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