A terminal Markdown editor that links like Obsidian — editxr

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A terminal Markdown editor that links like Obsidian

By Martín Romañuk · June 19, 2026

I keep my notes as a folder of Markdown files. They started as<br>.txt, and at some point became .md — text in a directory I can<br>grep, diff, and sync however I want. The format is rich enough to be useful and plain<br>enough to outlive any app I open it with. I like that a lot. Most of my notes link to each<br>other: less a tree, more a graph.

I went from Simplenote to a couple of others, then Bear, and now Obsidian, which is<br>good. But I'm often in the terminal, and when I'm there I want to read or edit a note<br>without switching to a GUI. editxr was already sitting in my shell, so I started using it<br>on my own notes.

That's when it started pulling on threads. I'd be in one note and want to follow a link<br>to another — but editxr could only open a single file at a time. So we added multi-file<br>editing: open several at once in tabs.

One thing wanted the next. Tabs wanted a way to see the files, so there's a sidebar for<br>the local directory now. It's new and still rough on big Markdown folders, but it's in. We<br>wanted a way to jump around the way everyone expects, so Ctrl+O opens a quick<br>switcher that takes you to any file in the tree; it opens in a new tab, Ctrl+N<br>cycles tabs, Ctrl+W closes one. And if you land on a link, you can follow it.<br>By the time all of that shipped there were enough new commands that we added a palette:<br>Ctrl+/ shows everything you can do.

Links that stay out of the way

A link in editxr renders collapsed to its title. [[architecture]]<br>shows as an underlined word, not raw brackets; [the spec](notes/spec.md) shows<br>as "the spec." Press Ctrl+] (or click) and it opens — a local .md<br>file in a new tab, an http(s)/mailto link in your browser.<br>Ctrl+[ jumps back to where you came from, so following a link and returning is<br>two keystrokes.

Move the cursor onto a link and it expands back to raw Markdown. Move off and it<br>collapses again. Nothing is hidden, and nothing is a special "link object" — it's plain<br>Markdown that happens to render nicely. Both styles work: standard<br>[text](file.md) and Obsidian-style [[wikilinks]].

Following a [[wikilink]] to another note, then Ctrl+[ back.

No vault, just the directory you're in

There's no "vault" concept for now. editxr opens the directory you're in, every time,<br>and your notes stay plain files — no proprietary format, nothing to import or export. It's<br>a lens over a folder, not a place your notes get trapped.

That's the line I'm holding for now. If the project takes off, I'd like the community's<br>take on where it should go from here.

It runs where you do

This linking shipped a while back; what's new is where. As of v1.4.0, editxr<br>runs on Windows too, alongside macOS and Linux. The terminal editing, the live rendering,<br>the linking: the same on all three. (The Windows build is x64 and also runs on Windows on<br>ARM via the OS's emulation.)

Try it — point it at a folder of notes and hit Ctrl+O.

brew install pixdeo/tap/editxr<br>View on GitHub