@oakoliver/glow

Terminal markdown reader — zero-dependency TypeScript port of Charmbracelet's Glow.

Render markdown files beautifully in the terminal, with a full interactive TUI for browsing and filtering markdown files in a directory.

Install

npm install -g @oakoliver/glow

Or use as a project dependency:

npm install @oakoliver/glow

CLI Usage

# Render a markdown file
glow README.md

# Render from stdin
cat README.md | glow -

# Render from a URL
glow https://raw.githubusercontent.com/charmbracelet/glow/master/README.md

# Render from a GitHub repo
glow github://charmbracelet/glow

# Render from a GitLab repo
glow gitlab://caarlos0/test

# Launch the interactive TUI in the current directory
glow

# Launch the TUI in a specific directory
glow ./docs

# Use a specific style
glow -s dark README.md

# Set word-wrap width
glow -w 80 README.md

# Pipe through a pager
glow -p README.md

# Edit the config file
glow config

Flags

| Flag | Short | Description | |------|-------|-------------| | --style | -s | Style name or JSON path (default "auto") | | --width | -w | Word-wrap at width (0 to disable) | | --pager | -p | Display with system pager | | --tui | -t | Display with TUI | | --all | -a | Show system files and directories (TUI only) | | --line-numbers | -l | Show line numbers (TUI only) | | --preserve-new-lines | -n | Preserve newlines in the output | | --mouse | -m | Enable mouse wheel (TUI only) | | --config | | Config file path | | --help | -h | Help | | --version | -v | Version |

Available Styles

• auto (default) — automatically detects dark/light terminal
• dark — dark theme
• light — light theme
• pink — pink theme
• dracula — Dracula color scheme
• tokyo-night — Tokyo Night color scheme
• notty — plain output for non-TTY contexts

You can also pass a path to a custom JSON style file.

TUI Keybindings

| Key | Action | |-----|--------| | Enter | Open document | | Esc / h / Backspace | Go back | | / | Filter files | | q | Quit | | r | Refresh files | | c | Copy to clipboard | | e | Open in editor | | ? | Toggle help | | j / k / Arrow keys | Navigate | | g / G | Go to top / bottom | | Ctrl+D / Ctrl+U | Half page down / up |

Library Usage

import {
  NewProgram,
  StashModel,
  PagerModel,
  defaultConfig,
  removeFrontmatter,
  isMarkdownFile,
  glamourStyle,
} from '@oakoliver/glow';

// Create a config
const cfg = defaultConfig();
cfg.path = './docs';

// Launch the TUI programmatically
const program = NewProgram(
  cfg,
  () => new StashModel(cfg),
  () => new PagerModel(cfg),
);
await program.run();

Configuration

Glow reads its configuration from ~/.config/glow/glow.yml (or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/glow/glow.yml).

# style name or JSON path (default "auto")
style: "auto"
# mouse support (TUI-mode only)
mouse: false
# use pager to display markdown
pager: false
# word-wrap at width
width: 80
# show all files, including hidden and ignored
all: false

Run glow config to open the config file in your editor.

Part of the Charm Ecosystem Port

This package is part of a complete TypeScript port of the Charmbracelet terminal UI ecosystem:

| Package | npm | Description | |---------|-----|-------------| | @oakoliver/lipgloss | @oakoliver/lipgloss | Terminal styling | | @oakoliver/glamour | @oakoliver/glamour | Markdown rendering | | @oakoliver/bubbletea | @oakoliver/bubbletea | TUI framework (Elm architecture) | | @oakoliver/bubbles | @oakoliver/bubbles | TUI components | | @oakoliver/glow | @oakoliver/glow | Terminal markdown reader |

All packages are zero-dependency, pure TypeScript implementations.

License

MIT - see LICENSE for details.

Original Go implementation by Charmbracelet, licensed under MIT.