mdv

mdv

A super simple, very nice Markdown viewer. One command, and your Markdown file opens in the browser as a beautifully styled, readable page.

mdv notes.md

Features

• One-line command — mdv <file.md> opens the rendered page in your default browser
• Beautiful typography — comfortable measure, careful spacing, system fonts
• Dark mode — automatically follows your OS appearance
• Syntax highlighting — fenced code blocks colored via chroma
• Live reload — save the file and the page updates instantly (scroll position preserved)
• GFM support — tables, task lists, strikethrough, autolinks
• Heading anchors — hover any heading to grab a #fragment link
• Local images — relative image paths in your Markdown just work
• Print-friendly — ⌘P gives you a clean printable/PDF version

Install

go install github.com/mcls/mdv@latest

Or build from source:

go build -o mdv .

A single static binary — no runtime, no node_modules.

Usage

mdv README.md              # open in browser, live-reload on save
mdv README.md --no-open    # start the server, don't open a browser
mdv README.md --port 8080  # pin a port (default: first free from 5173)

Stop with Ctrl+C.

How it works

mdv starts a tiny local HTTP server (bound to 127.0.0.1 only), renders the Markdown with goldmark + chroma, and opens the page. A file watcher pushes a server-sent event on every save, and the page swaps in the fresh content without losing your scroll position.

No build step, no config, one binary.

License

MIT