MoilStack .md (markdown) — Privacy-First Markdown AI Editor & Viewer

An open-source desktop Markdown AI editor and standalone markdown viewer built with Electron. Write, edit, and view Markdown files with syntax highlighting, live split-pane preview, and an integrated local AI assistant — all running privately on your machine.

Download

Pre-built installers are available on the Releases page.

Platform	Format
Windows	NSIS installer, portable ZIP
Linux	AppImage, DEB
macOS	DMG, ZIP (coming soon)

Features

• Dual-pane editor — syntax-highlighted editor with Markdown preview (`Ctrl+`` to toggle)
• File explorer — browse, create, rename, and open .md files from a folder, with Multi-level, Root-only, and Custom (no-folder) sidebar modes
• Global search — find filenames and in-file content across the open folder (Ctrl+Shift+F), with tag search via #tag or tag:name
• AI Assistant — ask the AI to edit your document, answer questions, or improve your writing
• Smart AI editing — document edits are applied silently and instantly; informational answers stream as chat
• Undo AI edits — every AI document change is reversible with the Undo button or Ctrl+Z
• Visual table builder — insert Markdown tables with a point-and-click grid editor
• File labels & tags — colour-tag files in the explorer for quick navigation, or add searchable tags stored in YAML frontmatter
• File backups — automatic snapshots to the app's user data folder before every AI edit
• File trash — delete files to the OS Recycle Bin from the context menu
• Multi-model support — connect any OpenAI-compatible API (Groq, OpenAI, Mistral, Together AI) or run Ollama locally
• Export to PDF — one-click export via native save dialog
• Dark / light theme — persisted across sessions
• Configurable editor — font size and font family settings

Screens

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js v18 or later
• npm

Install & Run

git clone https://github.com/moilstack/moilstack-md.git
cd moilstack-md
npm install
npm start

npm start uses nodemon — the app auto-reloads when you change any file in src/.

Build for Distribution

npm run package

Output goes to the dist/ folder. Targets: NSIS/ZIP (Windows), DMG/ZIP (macOS), AppImage/DEB (Linux).

Installing on Linux

DEB (Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, Pop!_OS, and other Debian-based distros):

sudo apt install ./moilstack-md_*.deb

AppImage (works on virtually any distro — Fedora, Arch, openSUSE, Ubuntu, etc. — no installation required):

chmod +x moilstack-md-*.AppImage
./moilstack-md-*.AppImage

If it fails to launch with a FUSE-related error (some minimal or newer distros, e.g. Fedora 41+, ship without FUSE2 by default), either install FUSE:

# Fedora
sudo dnf install fuse fuse-libs
# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt install fuse

or skip FUSE entirely and extract-and-run instead:

./moilstack-md-*.AppImage --appimage-extract-and-run

AI Assistant Setup

MoilStack .md relies on the standard OpenAI Chat Completions API architectural design, allowing you to instantly deploy powerful cloud models or execute complex workflows completely offline.

Flexible Deployment Options

• Fully Offline & Private: Protect sensitive information by running local text operations straight on your machine through Ollama.
• High-Speed Cloud API Infrastructure: Connect native accounts from Google Gemini, Groq, OpenAI, Mistral, or Together AI.

For definitive step-by-step setup guides, free tier account endpoint links, local model terminal scripts, and detailed performance matrices, see our dedicated AI Configuration & Model Setup Guide.

Using the AI Assistant

MoilStack .md acts as an interactive markdown AI editor, allowing you to seamlessly communicate text changes directly to your local workspace.

Document Editing & Refinement

Simply ask the AI assistant to modify your active file text:

• "Fix the grammar and layout flow in this document"
• "Add a clean summary section right at the top"
• "Convert this raw text paragraph into a clear bulleted list"

When the AI assistant processes an edit, changes are applied silently and instantly into the editor pane. A structural summary of the modifications appears inside the chat window.

Safety & Version Controls

• Instant Undo: Every single document modification made by the AI can be instantly reversed using the UI Undo button (↺) or by pressing Ctrl+Z.
• Automatic Snapshots: For absolute safety, MoilStack .md saves automatic file backups to the app's user data directory (not your workspace folder) before any AI processing occurs.
• Scoped Selections: Highlight specific sentences or code lines inside the editor pane before typing a prompt to limit the AI assistant's scope exclusively to that text selection.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+S	Save file
Ctrl+Z	Undo (AI edits first, then native undo)
`Ctrl+``	Toggle Edit / Preview mode
Ctrl+O	Open folder picker
Ctrl+N	New untitled file (in-memory)
Ctrl+Shift+N	New file on disk in Explorer's active folder
Ctrl+F	Find & replace
Ctrl+Shift+F	Global search (filenames & content)
Enter	Send chat message
Alt+Enter	New line in chat input
Escape	Close any open modal or dropdown

File Backups

Every time the AI edits your document, MoilStack .md saves a backup to the app's user data directory, keyed to your file's parent folder — not inside your workspace:

<app userData>/backups/<folder-name>-<folder-hash>/

On Windows this is typically under %APPDATA%, on macOS under ~/Library/Application Support, and on Linux under ~/.config.

Files are named <filename>_<timestamp>.md and the last 10 backups per file are kept automatically. Use these to recover from any unwanted AI changes.

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome. For significant changes, please open an issue first to discuss what you'd like to change.

See CHANGELOG.md for version history.

License

MIT — see LICENSE for details.

The project name, logo, and visual branding assets are not open source. See BRANDING.md for the Trademark & Branding Policy.