mdn-server

A CLI tool to serve and view Markdown files in the browser with live reload, search, and table of contents.

Installation

npm install -g mdn-server

Usage

# Serve markdown files from current directory
mdn-server

# Serve from a specific directory
mdn-server ./docs

# Open a specific markdown file
mdn-server ./docs/README.md

# Specify a custom port
mdn-server ./docs --port 4000

# Auto-open browser
mdn-server ./docs --open

When you pass a markdown file directly, the server serves its parent directory and opens that file automatically.

Then open http://localhost:3000 in your browser.

Features

• Sidebar Navigation - Browse files in a tree structure with folders
• Live Reload - Page updates automatically when you edit markdown files
• Full-Text Search - Search across all files with Ctrl+K / Cmd+K
• Table of Contents - Auto-generated from headings for easy navigation
• Syntax Highlighting - Code blocks are highlighted with highlight.js
• GitHub-Style Rendering - Clean, readable markdown styling

Options

| Option | Description | Default | |--------|-------------|---------| | -p, --port <port> | Port to run the server on | 3000 | | -o, --open | Open browser automatically | false | | -V, --version | Show version number | | | -h, --help | Show help | |

Keyboard Shortcuts

| Shortcut | Action | |----------|--------| | Ctrl+K / Cmd+K | Focus search | | Escape | Close search |

Example

# Create some markdown files
mkdir docs
echo "# Hello World" > docs/index.md
echo "# Getting Started" > docs/getting-started.md

# Start the server
mdn-server docs --open

License

MIT