Command line

mido [OPTIONS] [PATH]

PATH is a Markdown file, a folder, - for stdin, docs for the bundled documentation, or themes to list the themes. With no path, mido opens the current folder.

Options

Examples

mido README.md          # open one file
mido docs/              # browse a folder: files on the left, outline on the right
mido                    # the current folder
mido -                  # read Markdown from stdin
mido -p README.md       # print styled text to stdout, pipe it to less -R
mido -w 80 notes.md     # cap the width at 80 columns
mido -t nord notes.md   # read in the Nord theme
mido themes             # list the themes with a swatch of each
mido docs               # read this documentation offline

Width

By default the text runs the full width of the terminal, with small gutters on each side. --width caps the measure and centers the column, for anyone who prefers a fixed reading width on a wide screen.

Themes and config

--theme picks one of the built-in themes, a theme from the user themes folder, or a theme file by path, for this run only. mido themes lists them all with their kind and a swatch of their colors, and marks the one the config selects. As with docs, a file or folder called themes in the current directory wins over the listing.

Settings that last live in the config file, and a .mido.toml in a project folder overrides it there. --config reads a different file, which is handy for trying a setup out. Flags always win over both files.

Images

Local images render without any flag. Remote ones, http and https URLs, are skipped unless --remote-images is given, because opening a document should never make a network request by surprise. Downloads are capped at 10 MB and cached, so a page opens quickly the second time. See What renders for the terminals that draw pictures. The same flag lets badges fetch their live values.

Print mode

-p renders the document once and writes it to stdout with ANSI styling, so it can go through a pager or into another tool:

mido -p README.md | less -R

Piping or redirecting without -p writes plain text with no escape codes, so this never leaks colors into a file:

mido README.md > out.txt

Bundled documentation

mido docs opens this documentation in project mode with no network, unpacked from the binary into a temporary folder. A file or folder called docs in the current directory always wins, so inside a project with its own docs folder mido docs opens that folder, exactly like mido docs/.

Man page

The man page is generated at build time from the command definition. mido --man writes it as roff, so it can be read directly or installed:

mido --man | man -l -
mido --man > ~/.local/share/man/man1/mido.1

Exit

q quits the viewer. If an overlay is open, Esc closes it first.