dannysmith/astro-editor

README

Astro Editor

A native macOS markdown editor for Astro content collections. Clean writing interface with automatic frontmatter editing based on your collection schemas.

astro-editor-overview-compressed.mp4

Features

Writing Environment

Clean markdown/MDX editor with syntax highlighting. Frontmatter and imports are hidden while editing, shown in a dedicated sidebar.
Focus mode (highlights current sentence), copyedit mode (highlights parts of speech), and typewriter mode (keeps the cursor centered on screen).
Customizable heading colors with separate settings for dark and light themes.
Image preview on hover (Option + hover over paths).
Comprehensive keyboard shortcuts for formatting, headings, and navigation.
Auto-save: saves 2 seconds after you stop typing (configurable) with backup saves every 10 seconds while typing. Crash recovery included.

Frontmatter & Schema Integration

Generates editing forms from your Astro collection schemas with proper validation.
Supports all Zod types: strings, numbers, dates, booleans, enums, arrays, nested objects, references, and image fields.
Image fields provide drag-and-drop with automatic copying to your assets directory using relative paths by default (configurable per project/collection).
Field constraints (min/max, character limits) enforced in the UI.

MDX Components

Cmd + / opens component builder showing all components in your src/components/mdx/ directory.
Supports Astro, React, Vue, and Svelte components.
Automatically detects available props and lets you tab through values after insertion.

File Management

Collections and files automatically discovered from your content.config.ts.
Full support for subdirectories within collections.
Files sorted by publication date (configurable field name) with draft indicators.
Context menu for rename, duplicate, reveal in Finder, copy path.
Command palette (Cmd + P) for quick file switching and command access.

Project Configuration

Per-project and per-collection settings for custom directory structures.
Configurable field mappings (title, date, draft, description fields).
Light/dark theme with system integration.
IDE integration (open files/projects in VSCode, Cursor, etc.).

Supported Astro Projects

Astro Version: 5.x (may work with 4.x but expect bugs)
Content Collections: Must use the glob loader and have a schema defined with defineCollection
Configuration: Requires src/content/config.ts or src/content.config.ts

Non-markdown/MDX files in collections are ignored.

Default directory structure (all paths are configurable per project and per collection):

my-astro-site
└── src
    ├── assets/mycollection/      # Images and media
    ├── components/mdx/            # Astro/React/Vue/Svelte components for MDX
    ├── content/mycollection/      # Markdown and MDX files
    └── content.config.ts          # Collection definitions

Installation

Requires macOS 12 or later. Download the latest Release or install with Homebrew:

brew install --cask astro-editor

Other Platforms: Windows (.msi) and Linux (.AppImage, .deb, .rpm) builds are available from the releases page but are not officially supported yet. Use at your own risk.

Documentation

Documentation - Complete feature documentation
Contributing - Development setup and guidelines

Disclaimer

Work in progress. Commit your Astro project regularly when using the editor.

Contributing

Bug reports and feature requests are welcome. See the issue tracker.

Project Philosophy:

This is a tool for "writer mode", not "coder mode". Features related to git, publishing, deployment, or code editing are out of scope.
The UI is intentionally opinionated for simplicity. Customization options are limited to what's needed to work with different Astro project structures.

Pull requests welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup.

Roadmap

See the GitHub Project

Credits

iA Writer for inspiration and typography
DarkMatter by Vadim Demedes

Development

See CONTRIBUTING.md and developer docs for setup and architecture details.

Quick start:

bun install
bun run reset:testdata  # Creates test Astro project
bun run tauri:dev   # Starts dev server

Development commands:

bun run check:all       # Run all checks (TypeScript, Rust, tests)
bun run fix:all         # Auto-fix linting/formatting issues