What Grasmere does with your Markdown

Before you trust an app with files you’ve kept for years, you want to know what it reads, what it writes, and what it leaves alone. This page is the plain account: the syntax Grasmere understands, the front matter it looks for, the files it adds to a folder, and the things it never touches.

The files

A project is a folder of Markdown files, nothing more. Any folder will do, including an Obsidian vault or a Git repository. Files are UTF-8 and are saved as you type. Line endings are kept as they were, whether \n or \r\n. Text is never rewrapped, and no file is rewritten unless you edit it. If another app changes a file, Grasmere shows the change at once, and if you were both editing the same file it asks whether to keep yours, take theirs, or keep both.

The syntax

Grasmere reads GitHub’s flavour of CommonMark, which is what GitHub, Obsidian and most editors mean by Markdown today.

Raw HTML is shown as text and never passed through to a page, so nothing in a file can run. Dates written as 2026-10-03 are shown as chips.

Not understood

Maths in $ $, ==highlight== and other extensions are shown as the characters you typed. Wiki links in [[double brackets]] aren’t followed live. Project ▸ Convert Wiki-Links turns them into ordinary Markdown links, including aliases, #Heading targets and ![[embeds]], so a vault moves across in one step. Due dates in the Obsidian Tasks form are read.

Front matter

A YAML block at the top of a file is read for a handful of keys and otherwise left alone. Grasmere adds front matter only when you ask for something that needs it, such as setting a chapter’s status from its card.

What it adds to a folder

Everything Grasmere keeps about a project is a readable file in the project. There’s no database.

• project.md: the project’s summary, word targets, citation style and which documents are in hand, as headed sections of Markdown.
• index.md in a folder of chapters: the order of the chapters is the order of the links in it. Drag chapters on the Review stage and this file changes.
• research/: one Markdown file per source, with research.md as a table of them, highlights.md for your highlights, and an annotations folder.
• .review/: review rounds as JSON, with its own .gitignore.
• _site/ when you build the project as a website.

Folds, recovery copies and window state are kept in the app’s own data, never in your files.

Citations

A citation is a link to the source’s file, with the author and year as its text: [Field 2019, p. 12](../research/The%20Living%20Loaf.md). Any Markdown app shows it as a link. On export it’s written out in APA 7, Harvard, Chicago author-date or MLA 9, with a reference list. Pandoc’s [@key] citations can be converted with Project ▸ Convert Pandoc Citations. See citations without BibTeX.

Export

A document exports to PDF (⌘P) or Word (⇧⌘E). A folder publishes as one PDF, in standard manuscript format or typeset as a book, or as one Word document with a title page and a chapter to a page. Citations, footnotes, pictures and tables come through in each. New in 1.6. The Publish stage also writes LaTeX into a template of your own.

Keyboard

Questions

Can I use another editor at the same time?

Yes. Edit a file in Vim, VS Code or Obsidian and the change appears in Grasmere as soon as it’s saved.

Does it work in a Git repository?

Yes. Commits are listed under Versions, with Compare and Restore, and there’s an automatic commit setting under Settings ▸ Automation.

What happens if I stop using it?

You have a folder of Markdown files, plus a few more Markdown files it made. Delete those if you like.

Related

• A Markdown editor for Mac
• From Obsidian notes to a finished manuscript
• Markdown for projects
• The guides
• More on writing in Markdown

Last updated 10 November 2026.