readme-studio — Vite Tool Template

SHA-256: 2f3826a377fcec26bc4b1972f2d3dacf53623054bbe7b84de632b35e60bcea1a

2026-10-18T15:34:17.065Z

<p align="center">
  <a href="https://readme.prime0x2.dev">
    <img src=".github/assets/cover.png" alt="ReadmeStudio: the README editor with exports that don't suck" width="100%">
  </a>
</p>

<p align="center">
  <b>Write a README once. Get it right on GitHub, in PDF and in Word.</b><br>
  Section templates, a GitHub-accurate live preview, Mermaid diagrams and share links, all running in your browser.
</p>

<p align="center">
  <a href="https://readme.prime0x2.dev"><b>Open the app →</b></a>
  &nbsp;·&nbsp; <a href="#-features">Features</a>
  &nbsp;·&nbsp; <a href="#-share-any-github-readme">Share links</a>
  &nbsp;·&nbsp; <a href="#-getting-started">Run locally</a>
  &nbsp;·&nbsp; <a href="CHANGELOG.md">Changelog</a>
</p>

<p align="center">
  <a href="https://github.com/prime0x2/readme-studio/actions/workflows/ci.yml"><img src="https://github.com/prime0x2/readme-studio/actions/workflows/ci.yml/badge.svg?branch=main" alt="CI"></a>
  <a href="https://github.com/prime0x2/readme-studio/releases/latest"><img src="https://img.shields.io/github/v/release/prime0x2/readme-studio?color=f5721a" alt="Latest release"></a>
  <a href="LICENSE"><img src="https://img.shields.io/github/license/prime0x2/readme-studio?color=blue" alt="MIT license"></a>
  <a href="https://readme.prime0x2.dev"><img src="https://img.shields.io/website?url=https%3A%2F%2Freadme.prime0x2.dev&label=live&up_message=online" alt="Live site"></a>
  <br>
  <img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/React_19-20232a?logo=react&logoColor=61dafb" alt="React 19">
  <img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/TypeScript-3178c6?logo=typescript&logoColor=white" alt="TypeScript">
  <img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/Vite-646cff?logo=vite&logoColor=white" alt="Vite">
  <img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/Tailwind_CSS-0f172a?logo=tailwindcss&logoColor=38bdf8" alt="Tailwind CSS">
  <img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/Cloudflare_Workers-f38020?logo=cloudflare&logoColor=white" alt="Cloudflare Workers">
</p>

---

## 💡 Why

[readme.so](https://readme.so) made writing READMEs easy. But the moment you need that README somewhere other than GitHub (a PDF for a client, a Word doc for a handover), most tools hand you a blurry screenshot or lose half the styling.

ReadmeStudio keeps the section-based editor and makes the **exports first-class**. The PDF is printed by your browser from the *same* HTML and CSS as the preview, so they can't drift apart. The DOCX is built natively from the Markdown, with real Word headings, tables and code. Your document never leaves your machine unless you create a share link, and then only an encrypted copy is uploaded: the server never sees the document or the password.

## ✨ Features

- 🧩 **Section-based editing.** A searchable library of section templates (ported and improved from readme.so's MIT-licensed set, plus new ones like Docker, Badges and Monorepo layout). Start from a blank page, open a `.md` file from your computer (or drop it on the page), or click a template to add it; drag to reorder, reset to default, delete with undo, restore from trash.
- 👀 **GitHub-accurate preview.** GFM tables, task lists, Shiki syntax highlighting, badges and inline HTML, `<picture>` dark/light images, `> [!NOTE]` alerts and emoji shortcodes, in light and dark themes plus a raw-Markdown tab. Checked against GitHub's own rendering by the test suite.
- 📊 **Mermaid diagrams.** ` ```mermaid ` blocks render in the preview, as vector SVG in the PDF and as crisp images in the DOCX. Invalid diagrams fall back to a code block.
- 📄 **Real PDF export.** Printed by the browser's own engine from the preview's stylesheet: A4, page numbers, smart page breaks, selectable text, working links, vector diagrams, Bengali and other scripts.
- 📝 **Native DOCX export.** Word heading styles (the navigation pane works), GitHub-like tables sized from real image widths, highlighted code, alerts, diagrams and badges as crisp 2× images.
- 🔗 **Preview and share any GitHub README.** A read-only, shareable view of any public README, with PDF and DOCX download and **Edit a copy**. See [below](#-share-any-github-readme).
- 🔒 **Password-protected share links.** Share a snapshot of your draft as a short link. It's encrypted in your browser with your password before upload, so the server never sees the document or the password. The recipient types the password and gets the document full screen, with a theme toggle and PDF, DOCX and Markdown downloads. Links expire after 1, 7 or 30 days.
- 🎯 **Focus tools.** Collapse the sidebar, or expand the preview to fill the window.
- ⌨️ **A real editor.** CodeMirror 6 with Markdown highlighting, list continuation, per-section undo history and formatting shortcuts.
- 💾 **Auto-save.** Your document persists in the browser as you type. No account, no sign-up.

## 📸 Screenshots

<table>
  <tr>
    <td width="50%"><img src=".github/assets/dark-mode.png" alt="The editor in dark mode"></td>
    <td width="50%"><img src=".github/assets/pdf-export.png" alt="A page of the exported PDF"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td align="center"><sub>Dark mode, with a live Mermaid diagram</sub></td>
    <td align="center"><sub>The exported PDF: vector text, diagrams and tables</sub></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td colspan="2"><img src=".github/assets/share-links.png" alt="The Share dialog with a new link, and the password prompt the recipient sees"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td colspan="2" align="center"><sub>Password-protected share links, encrypted in your browser</sub></td>
  </tr>
</table>

## 🔗 Share any GitHub README

Put a GitHub link after `/view?url=` and you get a clean, shareable preview with PDF, DOCX and Markdown download. **Edit a copy** splits it into sections in the editor.

| Link | Opens |
| --- | --- |
| `/view?url=https://github.com/<owner>/<repo>` | The repository's README |
| `/gh/<owner>/<repo>` | The same, shorter |
| `/view?url=<file on github.com, raw.githubusercontent.com URL or gist>` | That file |
| Add `mode=full` to any of the above | A distraction-free reading view |

Relative images and links resolve against the repository, just like on GitHub. For example, this README: **<https://readme.prime0x2.dev/gh/prime0x2/readme-studio>**

## ⌨️ Keyboard shortcuts

| Shortcut | Action |
| --- | --- |
| <kbd>Ctrl</kbd>/<kbd>⌘</kbd> + <kbd>\\</kbd> | Show or hide the sections sidebar |
| <kbd>Esc</kbd> | Leave full screen |
| <kbd>Ctrl</kbd>/<kbd>⌘</kbd> + <kbd>B</kbd> / <kbd>I</kbd> | Bold / italic |
| <kbd>Ctrl</kbd>/<kbd>⌘</kbd> + <kbd>K</kbd> | Insert a link |

## 🧠 How it works

```mermaid
flowchart LR
  S[Sections] --> M[Markdown]
  M --> P["Shared pipeline<br/>(unified + Shiki + Mermaid)"]
  P --> V[Live preview]
  P --> R[Print view]
  R --> PDF[PDF<br/>browser print engine]
  M --> D[DOCX builder] --> W[DOCX]
```

Everything that affects rendering lives in one Markdown pipeline (`src/shared/`), so the preview and the PDF use the same HTML and CSS. The PDF is the browser's own print output; the DOCX is built in the browser from the Markdown syntax tree. The only network requests are the images your README links to, the GitHub README you open, the encrypted upload when you create a share link, and, for images whose host blocks cross-origin reads, an image proxy ([wsrv.nl](https://wsrv.nl), used only for those images and configurable with `VITE_IMAGE_PROXY`).

## 🗂 Project structure

```
src/              Vite + React 19 + Tailwind v4 + Zustand: editor, share links,
                  PDF (print) and DOCX export
src/shared/       markdown pipeline, preview CSS, section templates, types
                  (single source of truth so preview and PDF can never drift)
worker/           Cloudflare Worker: the share-link API (D1, rate limits, daily purge)
migrations/       D1 schema for share links
tests/            Vitest suites, including headless-Chromium browser tests
scripts/          one-off generators for the social card and README images
```

## 🚀 Getting started

Requires **Node ≥ 22.13** (development uses 24, see `.nvmrc`) and **pnpm ≥ 10**. pnpm switches to the exact version pinned in `package.json` on its own.

```bash
git clone https://github.com/prime0x2/readme-studio.git
cd readme-studio
./dev_setup.sh   # checks node/pnpm, copies the .env example, installs (safe to re-run)
pnpm dev         # http://localhost:3000
```

| Script | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| `pnpm dev` | Dev server with hot reload |
| `pnpm dev:api` | Share-link API in Cloudflare's local runtime on :8787, with a local D1 (`pnpm dev` proxies `/api` to it) |
| `pnpm db:migrate` | Apply D1 migrations to the production database |
| `pnpm build` | Type-check and production build into `dist/` |
| `pnpm test` | All tests, including the headless-Chromium suites |
| `pnpm lint` / `pnpm format` | Biome check / fix |
| `pnpm preview` | Build, then serve in Cloudflare's local runtime (`wrangler dev`) |
| `pnpm run deploy` | Build and deploy to Cloudflare Workers |
| `pnpm fixtures:update` | Refresh the GitHub parity fixtures |

## 🧪 Testing

167 tests, including real-browser suites that drive headless Chromium:

- **GitHub parity:** `tests/github-parity/` renders each fixture twice, once from GitHub's own HTML (GitHub's Markdown API, styled with `github-markdown-css`) and once through our pipeline with the app's real CSS. It then compares which images are shown, their sizes, floats and alignment, which images share a line, and table shapes, in light and dark.
- **Mermaid:** `tests/mermaid/` runs the real renderer and checks that labels are visible, diagrams follow the theme, invalid diagrams stay code and diagram labels can't run script.
- **Share links:** `tests/share/` and `tests/worker/` cover the wire format, the browser crypto, the client and the Worker API handlers.
- **PDF and DOCX:** the print path is rendered to real PDFs (A4, page numbers, diagrams, Bengali); DOCX output is checked for structure, tables, images and fonts.

<details>
<summary>More on the parity fixtures</summary>

<br>

Text isn't compared, since fonts legitimately differ. Images point at `https://img.readmestudio.test/<w>x<h>/<name>.svg` and are generated at that size by the test, so it runs offline.

The GitHub side follows GitHub's theme, including github.com's rule for `#gh-dark-mode-only` / `#gh-light-mode-only` links. Our side runs with the viewer's OS preference set to the *opposite* theme, because the preview must follow the app's theme toggle rather than the OS.

To add a case, write a new `tests/github-parity/fixtures/<name>.md` and fetch GitHub's rendering (set `GITHUB_TOKEN` to lift the 60 requests/hour limit):

```bash
pnpm fixtures:update
```

</details>

## ☁️ Deployment

Production runs at **<https://readme.prime0x2.dev>** on **Cloudflare Workers** as a Worker on the free plan: `dist/` is served from Cloudflare's edge, and a small Worker (`worker/`) answers `/api/*` for share links, backed by D1. `wrangler.jsonc` holds the whole setup: the assets directory, a single-page-app fallback (so `/view?url=…` and `/gh/<owner>/<repo>` links load the app) and the custom domain.

- **Manual deploy:** `pnpm run deploy` builds and runs `wrangler deploy`. The first run opens a browser to log in to Cloudflare.
- **Share links (first deploy only):** create the database with `pnpm exec wrangler d1 create readme-studio`, put the printed `database_id` into `wrangler.jsonc`, then run `pnpm db:migrate`. Run `pnpm db:migrate` again whenever a new file appears in `migrations/`.
  - **Cleaning up abuse:** new shares are refused with a 503 once live ciphertext reaches 400 MB. To free space, find the burst with `pnpm exec wrangler d1 execute readme-studio --remote --command "SELECT created_at, size FROM shares ORDER BY created_at DESC LIMIT 50"`, then delete it by creation time (milliseconds since the epoch): `pnpm exec wrangler d1 execute readme-studio --remote --command "DELETE FROM shares WHERE created_at BETWEEN <from> AND <to>"`. Rows hold only ciphertext, so you can't tell good shares from bad ones by content.
- **Automatic deploys:** in the Cloudflare dashboard, go to *Workers & Pages → Create → Import a repository*, then set the build command to `pnpm build` and the deploy command to `npx wrangler deploy`. Every push to `main` deploys, and other branches get preview URLs. CI also runs `wrangler deploy --dry-run`, so a broken config fails the PR rather than the deploy.
- **Your own domain:** change `routes` in `wrangler.jsonc`, or remove it to use the `*.workers.dev` URL. The zone must be on the same Cloudflare account and the hostname must not already have a DNS record; Wrangler creates it.
- **Visitor analytics:** [Cloudflare Web Analytics](https://developers.cloudflare.com/web-analytics/), a cookie-less beacon that counts real human page views. Its token is public (it ships in the page source), so it lives in the committed `.env.production`, and only production builds load it.

## 🗺 Roadmap

- **End-to-end tests** for full flows: edit sections, download each format, validate the files.
- Import a local `README.md` file (GitHub links can already be imported with **Edit a copy**).
- Multiple documents with a document switcher.
- More section template packs.

## 🤝 Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome. Before opening a PR, run `pnpm lint && pnpm test`; the husky pre-commit hook runs Biome for you. For bigger changes, open an issue first so we can agree on the approach.

## 🙏 Credits

The section-editor interaction model and the original section template texts come from [readme.so](https://github.com/octokatherine/readme.so) by Katherine Oelsner (MIT License). ReadmeStudio is an independent project with its own design and export engine. The original product spec lives in [SPEC.md](./SPEC.md).

## 📄 License

[MIT](./LICENSE) © 2026 prime0x2