RefMD

RefMD is a real-time Markdown collaboration platform that lets teams co-author documents, publish anonymous share links, sync changes to Git, and extend the workspace through Extism-powered ESM plugins.

Warning

RefMD is currently in beta. Content hosted on refmd.io may be updated or modified without prior notice. Document persistence is not guaranteed. Self-hosting is recommended for users who require stability or long-term data retention.

refmd-demo-video.1.mp4

Key Features

• Real-time co-editing with presence indicators and a Monaco-based editor.
• Anonymous sharing through one-off links and public publish flows.
• Git Sync so documents stay in step with your repositories.
• Plugin extensibility powered by the RefMD Plugin SDK, enabling community-built integrations that can be toggled per user.
• Workspace management for organizing multiple members, with individually assignable permissions.
• API tokens generated from the profile page for automations and external integrations.

Quick Start

1. Pull the latest images and start the stack:

   docker compose up -d

2. Wait for the health checks to pass (docker compose ps) and open http://localhost:3000 for the web app (api is exposed on http://localhost:8888).
3. Sign up for a new account (email + password) and start editing. Update JWT_SECRET / ENCRYPTION_KEY / PLUGIN_ASSET_SIGN_KEY in the compose file or an .env file before running in production.

For local development or when you need to rebuild the images, use docker compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml up --build instead.

Documentation

Looking for guides and API docs? Head over to https://refmdio.github.io/docs/ for the full documentation site.

Tech Stack

• Backend: Rust + Axum, SQLx, Tokio, PostgreSQL
• Frontend: React (Vite), TanStack Router/Query, Monaco editor, Tailwind CSS
• Realtime: Yjs collaborative engine with WebSocket bridge
• Plugins: RefMD Plugin SDK atop Extism runtimes with ESM-compatible plugin bundles

Contributing

Issues and Pull Requests are welcome.
Please use Issues for bug reports and feature requests, and keep PRs focused and reviewable.
For larger changes or new features, open an Issue first to discuss direction before submitting a PR.

License

Distributed under the GPL-3.0 License. See LICENSE for details.