mdless

A fast, terminal-based markdown file viewer built with Rust.

Features

• Real-time rendering: View markdown files with syntax highlighting
• File watching: Automatically reload when files change (with -w flag)
• Keyboard navigation: Scroll through documents with vim-like keybindings
• Search functionality: Find text with vim-like / search, navigate with n/N
• Advanced syntax highlighting: Code blocks with proper language-specific highlighting using syntect
• HTML-style code blocks: Bordered code blocks with language labels and professional styling
• Cross-platform: Works on Linux, macOS, and Windows

Installation

cargo install --path .

Usage

Basic usage

mdless README.md

Watch mode (auto-reload on file changes)

mdless -w README.md

Keybindings

Basic Controls

Search

Vim-Style Movement

Development

Prerequisites

• Rust 1.70 or later
• Cargo

Building

cargo build --release

Running tests

cargo test

Code formatting and linting

cargo fmt
cargo clippy

Pre-commit hooks

The project includes a pre-commit hook that automatically runs formatting checks, linting, compilation verification, and tests before each commit. To install the hook:

# Install or reinstall the pre-commit hook
./scripts/install-hooks.sh

The pre-commit hook will run:

• cargo check - Fast compilation check (runs first)
• cargo fmt --check - Verify code formatting
• cargo clippy - Run linter with warnings as errors
• cargo test - Run all tests

To run the checks manually without committing:

./scripts/pre-commit-checks.sh

To bypass the hook for a specific commit (not recommended):

git commit --no-verify

License

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.