mdly

A lightweight Markdown-first document editor. Free, open source, and designed for fast local document workflows.

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mdly is a free, open-source Markdown editor for you and your agents.

• Feels familiar. The same writing experience you're used to from Notion or Apple Notes, but for Markdown. / commands, Markdown shortcuts, and file properties / frontmatter are supported.
• Agent ready. Point your agent at your notes folder to start collaborating. mdly live-reloads as your agent edits.
• Build any view. Beyond Markdown, you can build and view HTML-based apps. Install the skills and tell your coding agent what to build. Turn a folder of notes into a table, a bookshelf, a map... anything you can think of.

mdly is a fork of Hubble.md by Ben Holmes. It keeps the original MIT license notice and is moving in a separate product direction.

mdly may work with Notion exports or Notion-connected workflows, but it is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Notion Labs, Inc.

mdly ships as a desktop app. Install the latest build from the releases page.

macOS is supported today. Windows and Linux are not built yet, mostly because I haven't tested on those operating systems yet :) They should be straightforward to add, so contributions are welcome!

mdly can search, import, refresh, and explicitly push linked Notion pages as local Markdown files. Notion database imports are currently read-only table views.

Notion support uses the local ntn CLI and its ntn-acct account wrapper. Set it up once on your Mac:

curl -fsSL https://ntn.dev | bash
ntn --version

Create a public Notion integration at notion.so/my-integrations, complete Notion's OAuth flow for the workspace you want to use, then store the OAuth access token under a local account name:

mkdir -p ~/.config/notion/accounts/7lab
printf '%s' '<your-oauth-access-token>' > ~/.config/notion/accounts/7lab/oauth_access_token
NOTION_ACCOUNT=7lab ntn-acct api v1/users/me

Use a different folder name, such as work or personal, for additional workspaces. mdly uses the 7lab account by default, or the account you choose in the Notion dialog. Markdown sync requires an OAuth token; internal integration API keys are not enough for Notion's Markdown endpoints.

After setup:

1. Open mdly.
2. Use Open Notion from the toolbar or command bar.
3. Choose the Notion account if you have more than one.
4. Search for a page or database.
5. Open a page to create a linked Markdown file in the current folder, or open a database to create a read-only local table view.

Linked Notion pages stay local-first. Saving the Markdown file does not update Notion automatically; use Push to Notion when you want to send local changes back, and Refresh from Notion when you want to fetch the latest remote content.

Want to build mdly directly? First, install the prerequisites:

• Node.js
• pnpm
• macOS desktop builds: Xcode Command Line Tools via xcode-select --install

Then from the repo root:

pnpm install
pnpm bundle:desktop

This creates a production desktop bundle under apps/desktop/release/. For the live dev flow and packaging detail, see apps/desktop/README.md.

This repo is a pnpm workspace:

.
├── apps
│   ├── desktop  # Electron desktop app (the main mdly app)
│   ├── web      # Astro landing page
│   └── www      # React + Convex web app (HEAVILY WIP)
└── packages
    ├── editor         # Framework-agnostic Markdown editor core (Tiptap + Markdown conversion)
    ├── ui             # Shared React editor UI built on the editor core
    ├── runtime        # Runtime injected into HTML Apps and Embeds
    ├── sync           # Filesystem sync engine (HEAVILY WIP)
    ├── convex-client  # Convex client used by the sync engine
    ├── sync-backend   # Convex backend powering Cloud Sync
    └── cli            # `hubble` CLI for syncing a folder from the terminal

From the repo root:

pnpm install          # install dependencies
pnpm dev:desktop      # run the desktop app in dev
pnpm dev:www          # run the web app in dev
pnpm build            # check, build all packages, and typecheck
pnpm bundle:desktop   # build a production desktop bundle
pnpm check            # run Biome
pnpm typecheck        # typecheck all packages

• CONTRIBUTING.md covers the contribution flow, local setup, and pre-PR checks.
• CONTEXT.md is the shared glossary for project terms (Workspace, HTML App, Embed, and more).
• apps/desktop/README.md covers desktop build, dev, and packaging.

Contributions of any size are welcome. Open an issue before substantial work so we can agree on the approach together. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full flow.

This project follows our Code of Conduct. To report a security issue, see our security policy.

mdly is licensed under the MIT License. The original Hubble.md copyright notice is retained in the license file.