Pulse MD

Pulse MD is a fast, local-first desktop Markdown reader and editor. It combines an editable live-rendered document with a deliberate Raw Markdown mode, while keeping the surrounding interface quiet. macOS and Windows x64 are currently verified, along with Linux on the current Arch/Omarchy baseline.

Pulse MD 1.0 is a personal source-available project. The source is provided as-is for noncommercial use; there is no support, maintenance, compatibility, or release-schedule promise. Noncommercial forks and self-built copies are welcome.

Highlights

• Fast from launch to first keystroke. Startup, focus, large documents, and editing latency are treated as product features.
• One surface for reading and writing. Live mode renders Markdown in place; Raw Markdown mode provides a source-first editor when wanted.
• Broad Markdown support. CommonMark and GitHub Flavored Markdown plus callouts, footnotes, definition lists, emoji, math, Mermaid, YAML front matter, and sanitized HTML.
• Minimal, configurable chrome. Tabs, formatting tools, paths, and status information can be pinned, hidden, or shown contextually.
• Themes and typography. Built-in light and dark themes, custom presets, reading-width and zoom controls, bundled fonts, and platform-aware translucency.
• Profiles and scratches. Reusable multi-tab window profiles and standalone auto-saved scratch documents with stable, channel-specific app links.
• Keyboard and CLI workflows. Familiar shortcuts and a native pmd helper for files, standard input, tabs, profiles, scratches, cursor placement, and editor wait mode.

Screenshots

Live Markdown	Raw Markdown

The screenshots are captured from the real application with the deterministic npm run screenshots script.

Build it yourself

The repository is the canonical source. To create an installable package for the machine running the command:

git clone https://github.com/mapleroyal/pulse-md.git
cd pulse-md
npm ci
npm run package

Packages are written to release/. The command selects DMG/ZIP on macOS, NSIS on Windows, and AppImage plus DEB on Linux. The AppImage is the portable, cross-distribution Linux download; the .deb is only for Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, and their derivatives. Linux also provides format-specific commands:

npm run package:linux            # AppImage plus DEB
npm run package:linux:appimage   # AppImage only
npm run package:linux:deb        # Debian-family package only
npm run package:linux:arch       # Native Arch package only

The Arch command uses the checked-in PKGBUILD template and makepkg to create a conventional .pkg.tar.zst package managed by pacman; it does not repurpose the AppImage or .deb. On Arch and Omarchy, npm run install:local builds that native package, installs and verifies it through pacman, and migrates a validated legacy user-local Pulse MD installation. RPM and Flatpak are not current targets. Packaging does not upload anything or require storefront credentials or code-signing credentials.

On Linux, Pulse MD provides its application icon and registers itself for Markdown files, but leaves the shared Markdown document artwork to the active desktop icon theme.

Windows and Linux packages must be built and installed on their respective operating systems before they are distributed.

Use Node.js 24 LTS when possible (Node.js 22.13 or newer is supported). Native toolchain prerequisites and platform-specific commands are in Building from source.

The supported Windows build is x64, including on Windows-on-Arm: install x64 Node and confirm node -p process.arch prints x64. If a Restricted PowerShell policy selects and blocks npm.ps1, invoke the same commands with npm.cmd.

Command line

Every packaged build uses the Pulse MD identity and native pmd helper, whether it was built from source, downloaded directly, or eventually obtained from a platform storefront. Keep only one packaged copy installed. Checkout development remains isolated as Pulse MD Development and uses npm run cli:dev --. Installation details are in the build guide.

pmd notes.md todo.md
pmd --mouse-monitor --mode live notes.md
printf '# Quick note\n' | pmd - --stdin-name thought.md
pmd --wait .git/COMMIT_EDITMSG
pmd profile open quick-notes
pmd scratch open work-notes

See the complete CLI reference.

Development

npm ci
npm run dev

The main local validation commands are:

npm run check       # formatting, lint, unit/CLI tests, build, bundle budgets
npm run check:full  # the above plus Electron end-to-end tests

Product, process, and performance boundaries are documented in AGENTS.md and ARCHITECTURE.md. Build and install lanes are documented in docs/BUILDING.md. This repository deliberately contains no GitHub build pipeline.

Privacy and license

Pulse MD has no telemetry, account system, advertising, or automatic updater. Documents and settings remain on the device unless the user explicitly opens remote content or exports them.

Pulse MD source is available for noncommercial use under the PolyForm Noncommercial License 1.0.0. Third-party components and assets retain their own licenses; see THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.