attn

Read markdown beautifully. Review it together.
Native window. End-to-end encrypted collaboration. No Electron.

Collaboration · Install · Usage · Issues

---

attn .

attn opens your markdown in a native desktop window with a file tree, tabs, live reload, and a real editor. When a document needs feedback, hit Share and send an invite link. Reviewers can comment, suggest edits, and co-edit from the same markdown surface.

No account. No browser tab. No Electron runtime. The review relay only sees encrypted bytes.

Why attn?

Markdown usually lives in your repo, but review often moves somewhere else: screenshots, pasted docs, stale exported PDFs, or a SaaS editor with a copy of your source.

attn keeps the source of truth local and makes review a layer over the file you already have. You get a focused reader, a capable editor, and an encrypted review room without changing how your project is organized.

Features

• Beautiful markdown rendering - readable line length, careful typography, syntax-highlighted code, tables, task lists, math, and Mermaid diagrams.
• Live reload - save in Vim, VS Code, Zed, or any editor and the native window updates immediately.
• Built-in editor - toggle a ProseMirror editor with Cmd+E when you want to edit in place.
• Interactive checkboxes - click a - [ ] task and attn writes the change back to the file.
• Project file tree - browse folders, lazy-load large repos, and jump to files with fuzzy search.
• Tabs and project switching - keep multiple files open and move between remembered workspaces.
• Native media preview - images, video, and audio open alongside markdown.
• Light and dark themes - paper-and-ink light mode plus a low-glare dark mode.
• Single-instance CLI - run attn from many terminals; one daemon receives new files as tabs.

Collaboration

attn's review flow is built for markdown that should stay private and local.

• Share in one click - use the Share button, the breadcrumb/share menu, or Cmd+Shift+S to create a review room for the active markdown file.
• Encrypted invite links - send an attn://review/...#key=... link or the generated npx attnmd ... command. The room key is in the invite fragment, not on the relay.
• Comments and suggestions - reviewers anchor feedback to selected text; suggestions appear beside the document with Accept/Reject actions.
• Live cursors and co-editing - connected reviewers show up in the document and sidebar so you can see where people are reading or editing.
• Hybrid transport - attn uses direct peer-to-peer collaboration when it can and falls back to the encrypted relay when it cannot.
• Folder share - share a directory to publish snapshots for every markdown file under it; newly added markdown files are picked up by the watcher.

Owner flow:

attn path/to/docs
# In the app: Share, or Cmd+Shift+S

CLI share flow:

attn review share path/to/docs

Reviewer flow:

attn review join 'attn://review/<room-id>#key=<secret>'

For headless reviewers or agents:

attn review join 'attn://review/<room-id>#key=<secret>' --as-agent reviewer

Install

Homebrew

brew install lightsofapollo/attn/attn

npm

npx attnmd
# or
npm install -g attnmd && attn

From source

git clone https://github.com/lightsofapollo/attn.git
cd attn
cargo install --path .

Requires Rust 1.85+. npm installs require Node 18+.

Usage

attn                     # open current directory
attn README.md           # open a file
attn ~/projects/myapp    # open a project
attn --dark              # force dark mode
attn --status todo.md    # print task progress, e.g. "3/5 tasks complete"
attn --json spec.md      # dump document structure as JSON

Review CLI

attn review share docs/                         # share a file or folder
attn review join 'attn://review/...'            # open/join through the app
attn review join 'attn://review/...' --as-agent reviewer
attn review list-agents
attn review whoami

Keyboard shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Cmd+P	Fuzzy file search
Cmd+E	Toggle editor
Cmd+F	Find and replace
Cmd+Shift+S	Share for review
Cmd+;	Switch project
Cmd+W	Close tab
Cmd+Tab / Cmd+Shift+Tab	Navigate tabs
Cmd+= / Cmd+-	Zoom in / out
Cmd+0	Reset zoom
Cmd+/	Show all shortcuts

How it works

The Svelte 5 frontend is compiled by Vite and embedded into the Rust binary at build time. There is no bundled web server and no extracted asset directory at runtime.

On first launch, attn forks a daemon to the background. The daemon opens a native window via wry, watches your files, and listens on a Unix socket. Later attn calls connect to that socket and open new tabs in the existing window. If the binary changes after a rebuild, the old daemon is replaced automatically.

Collaboration is layered on top of the local file model. The owner shares a snapshot graph and review event log over an end-to-end encrypted room. The relay handles discovery, mailbox fallback, and presence transport, but it does not receive plaintext markdown or comments.

src/
  main.rs       CLI, native window, keyboard shortcuts
  daemon.rs     Unix socket IPC, single-instance daemon
  watcher.rs    File system monitoring with debouncing
  markdown.rs   Structure extraction
  ipc.rs        Webview <-> Rust messaging
  files.rs      File tree and media type detection
  projects.rs   Project registry
  review/       Encrypted review rooms, anchors, transport, apply flow

web/src/        Svelte 5 frontend
relay/          Cloudflare Worker relay for encrypted review traffic
site/           Public marketing site

Development

task dev                              # Vite HMR + Rust in foreground
task dev ATTN_PATH=path/to/file.md    # open a specific file

Builds:

scripts/build.sh            # debug build
scripts/build.sh release    # release build with devtools/screenshots
scripts/build.sh prod       # production release build

Useful gates:

npm run check --prefix web
npm test --prefix web
cargo test
npm test --prefix relay
npm run build --prefix site

License

MIT