scriptory

A lightweight, local-first internal documentation tool with a Markdown editor. Think Notion, but it runs entirely on your machine and stores everything as plain .mdx files in your repo.

Install

npm install -g scriptory

Usage

# Start the server (opens browser automatically)
scriptory

# On a custom port
scriptory --port 8080

# Initialise a new project in the current directory
scriptory init

# Check for updates
scriptory update

# Configure editor deeplinks (e.g. open files in VS Code)
scriptory set DEEPLINK_PREFIX vscode://file
scriptory get DEEPLINK_PREFIX

How it works

Running scriptory in a project directory starts an Express server at http://localhost:6767 and opens the UI in your browser. Documentation is stored inside a scriptory/ folder in the current directory — each page is a sub-folder containing:

scriptory/
  getting-started/
    config.json      ← title + icon
    content.mdx      ← Markdown content
  architecture/
    config.json
    content.mdx

Because everything is plain files, docs live alongside your code and are committed to version control.

Features

• Markdown + MDX — GFM tables, fenced code blocks with syntax highlighting
• Insert code files — Browse your project and embed files as code blocks in one click
• Deep links — Configure a prefix (e.g. vscode://file) to make file paths in docs clickable
• Keyboard shortcuts — ⌘S to save, ⌘P to toggle preview, ⌘N for a new doc
• Zero cloud — everything stays local; no accounts, no sync, no tracking

Development

git clone https://github.com/anandpilania/scriptory
cd scriptory
npm install

# Run backend + frontend dev servers concurrently
npm run dev

The frontend (Vite + React) runs on :3000 and proxies /api to the backend on :6767.

License

MIT