The human window into an agent-managed markdown corpus. Your AI agents write docs, memory, and tasks through the bundled MCP server; you read the same plain files in a clean native app. It also works as a fast reader for any folder of markdown - macOS, Linux, Windows.
Linux AppImage works on most distros; for .deb or .rpm see Releases. Or install via Homebrew or one-liner.
Everything is plain markdown on disk - no database, greppable, versionable with git. A workspace is a folder of markdown (your default ~/notes, or a project's <project>/notes) with three namespaces:
| Namespace | Lives in | Holds |
|---|---|---|
| Docs | research/ in-progress/ done/ archived/ |
Research, plans, decisions. The folder IS the status - moving the file IS the status change. Phase subfolders (research/v2-launch/) group work. |
| Memory | memory/ |
Short topic-addressed facts, one entry per topic, rewritten wholesale. |
| Tasks | tasks/ |
Backlog.md-shaped files: task-N ids, status in frontmatter, an acceptance-criteria checklist. |
Agents write through the MCP server; open docs reload live as they write. A docsreader://onboarding resource teaches agents the model, and tool errors carry recovery hints so they self-correct instead of stalling.
Settings → AI agents → Connect detects installed clients (Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code, Codex) and registers the bundled docsreader-mcp with each in one click. Prefer the terminal? For Claude Code:
claude mcp add --scope user docsreader -- docsreader-mcpOther clients, binary paths, the full tool reference, and the docsreader:// resources are in docs/MCP.md.
If you use Claude Code, the bundled plugin surfaces DocsReader tasks in the terminal - a /docsreader:board printout, a /docsreader:sync command, a live task-count statusline, and an auto-sync hook:
/plugin marketplace add anbturki/docsreader
/plugin install docsreader@docsreaderNeeds docsreader-mcp on your PATH and jq. Full setup in the plugin README.
| Rich rendering | GitHub-flavored Markdown, KaTeX math, Mermaid diagrams, Shiki highlighting across twelve themes |
| Interactive checklists | Toggle any checkbox from the rendered view; the change writes back to the file |
| Five lenses | Tree, Recent, Tags, Pinned, and a Tasks kanban board over one library |
| Split view | Two docs side-by-side or stacked, each with its own tabs and scroll |
| Open with | Double-click a .md in Finder or "Open With DocsReader" to jump straight to a file or folder |
| Task board | To Do / In Progress / Done with drag-to-advance and acceptance-criteria progress, consistent with the MCP |
| Agent-aware | Open docs reload live as agents write; on-disk changes surface a diff; git status shows in the tree |
| Quiet and local | Minimal chrome, no telemetry, signed updates, notarized on macOS |
Full list with screenshots in docs/FEATURES.md. Found a bug or want a feature? Open an issue.
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More views in docs/FEATURES.md.
| Method | Command |
|---|---|
| macOS (Homebrew) | brew install --cask anbturki/tap/docsreader |
| macOS / Linux (curl) | curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/anbturki/docsreader/main/install.sh | bash |
| Manual | Download from Releases |
Manual downloads: DocsReader_*_universal.dmg (macOS Intel + Apple Silicon), DocsReader_*_amd64.AppImage or .deb (Linux), DocsReader_*_x64-setup.exe (Windows).
- What's new - release history and notes
- docs/MCP.md - connect agents, every tool, the
docsreader://resources - docs/FEATURES.md - the full feature list
- docs/DEVELOPMENT.md - build from source, release process
- SECURITY.md - security policy