Bao

A beautiful, local-first Markdown editor for notes, docs, and ideas.

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Bao is a desktop Markdown editor that keeps everything on your machine — no accounts, no cloud, no subscriptions. Open it and start writing. Your notes are plain Markdown files you can access anywhere.

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Features

✍️ Editor

• Live rich-text Markdown with raw source mode
• Floating formatting toolbar
• Slash commands (/) for blocks and elements
• Tables, images, code blocks, and nested lists
• Syntax highlighting and inline image resizing

📁 Vault & Files

• Local vault folder (plain .md files)
• Sidebar file tree with drag & drop
• Create, rename, duplicate, delete files and folders
• Auto-rename file from first # heading
• Reveal in Finder / open in default app

🗂 Tabs

• Multi-tab editing
• Drag tabs between windows
• Unsaved changes indicator

🔍 Search

• Full-text vault search
• Live results with context
• In-editor highlighting

🏷 Tags & Notes

• Per-note tags with filtering
• Inline annotations and notes panel
• Resolve/reopen workflow

🤖 AI Assistant

• Built-in chat panel (backend integration planned)

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Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+

Install

npm install

Development

npm run dev

Starts Vite and launches Electron with hot reload.

Production

npm run build
npm start

Tests

npm test
npm run test:watch

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Build Desktop App

Bao uses electron-builder.

macOS

npm run dist

Output:

release/Bao-1.0.0.dmg
release/mac-arm64/Bao.app

Windows

npm run dist

Output:

release/Bao Setup 1.0.0.exe
release/win-unpacked/

Scripts

Command	Description
npm run dev	Run app in development
npm run build	Build renderer
npm start	Run built app
npm test	Run tests
npm run pack	Package app
npm run dist	Build installers