alt.hn

4/16/2026 at 4:08:05 PM

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

 https://github.com/GRVYDEV/marky

by GRVYDEV

4/17/2026 at 4:57:34 AM

> 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.

by hresvelgr

4/17/2026 at 6:26:52 AM

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.

by hnlmorg

4/17/2026 at 12:23:02 PM

This isn’t the 90s anymore. Using the systems web view is, in fact, native by definition.

by GRVYDEV

4/17/2026 at 1:40:08 PM

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.

by jazzypants

4/20/2026 at 4:32:22 PM

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.

by slava_

4/20/2026 at 5:21:48 PM

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

by GRVYDEV

4/17/2026 at 12:31:27 AM

Seems like I'm just part of the club here, but I've also been working on something similar recently.

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/

by mschulkind

4/17/2026 at 2:39:02 AM

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.

by physicles

4/16/2026 at 10:34:09 PM

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) is on the /show page now (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 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...: "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.

by FailMore

4/17/2026 at 3:36:01 AM

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.

by gknapp

4/17/2026 at 12:20:32 PM

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

by GRVYDEV

4/17/2026 at 2:41:00 AM

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

by dhruv3006

4/17/2026 at 2:49:40 AM

Voiden looks awesome I’ll have to check it out

by GRVYDEV

4/17/2026 at 3:15:03 AM

yep we too are markdown based but are a api tool !

by dhruv3006

4/17/2026 at 1:01:00 AM

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?

by msluyter

4/17/2026 at 1:57:45 AM

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.

by alsetmusic

4/17/2026 at 2:32:55 AM

These are great suggestions I’ll get these added tomorrow!

by GRVYDEV

4/20/2026 at 4:26:46 PM

Thanks again for this suggestion. I just went and added these features

by GRVYDEV

4/17/2026 at 1:15:48 AM

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 :)

by hbbio

4/17/2026 at 2:51:44 AM

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

by GRVYDEV

4/16/2026 at 9:54:07 PM

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.

by desireco42

4/17/2026 at 12:33:05 AM

I tend to use 'bat' or 'glow' though I've tried 'mdlook' and 'mdcat' as well.

by mech422

4/17/2026 at 2:53:04 AM

I live in my terminal but for some reason any TUI markdown viewers just don’t do it for me

by GRVYDEV

4/17/2026 at 6:55:16 AM

Yeah - I've tried a bunch of them, and nothing's really perfect but those seem to be good enough for lightweight use.

by mech422

4/16/2026 at 10:14:57 PM

Oh nice! I’ve never checked out Typora before I’ll take a look as well

by GRVYDEV

4/16/2026 at 11:44:21 PM

Can +1 Typora, it's quite excellent.

by Arubis

4/17/2026 at 2:14:42 AM

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.

by zmmmmm

4/17/2026 at 2:33:56 AM

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

by GRVYDEV

4/17/2026 at 2:58:33 PM

VS codes preview of markdown files scrolls very poorly on my Mac. It jumps around and scrolls slowly through certain sections.

by sleazebreeze

4/17/2026 at 1:20:15 AM

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

by FergusArgyll

4/17/2026 at 2:52:27 AM

Haha awesome. Was the lowest hanging fruit for a name

by GRVYDEV

4/17/2026 at 9:41:45 AM

Mine too!

by robsan

4/17/2026 at 12:16:35 AM

I did something very similar recently, just made it open source but haven't posted anywhere.

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!

by yakkomajuri

4/16/2026 at 10:08:48 PM

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

by _andrei_

4/16/2026 at 10:15:18 PM

Awesome that’s a super interesting approach

by GRVYDEV

4/17/2026 at 12:22:51 AM

[dead]

by peacemosaic

4/16/2026 at 7:02:41 PM

[flagged]

by hizihic