---
title: "Daily workflow: markdown across projects and AI tools"
source: https://markdownlibrary.app/docs/workflow
---

# Daily workflow: markdown across projects and AI tools

## The daily pattern

Most people who work with AI touch dozens of markdown files a day: context files that shape how agents behave, specs that define what to build, documentation that records decisions, and plans, notes, drafts and logs. They are scattered across repos and folders, and they matter more than they used to.

Markdown Library ML-42 is designed for that pattern: add your projects, browse what is there, read something, edit something, move on. There is no import step and no database. The app works on folders and files.

## Many projects at once

Add as many project folders as you work with: repos, docs directories, personal notes, client folders. The sidebar keeps one project expanded at a time, so you always know where you are and the others are one click away.

The command palette (Cmd+K) searches all projects at once. When you are trying to remember where you put an architecture decision record, you do not need to know which project it is in. Type a few words and ML-42 finds it by filename or content.

Navigation history works across projects. Jump from a context file in one repo to a spec in another, then press Cmd+[ to go back to where you started.

## Folder overviews

Click a folder and ML-42 shows an overview instead of a bare file list: document cards with summaries and modification dates, subfolders with document counts, and breadcrumb navigation.

This helps when you come back to a project you have not touched in a week. The overview shows what is there, what changed recently and where to start, without opening individual files.

## View mode and edit mode

ML-42 has two modes, both fast: view mode, rendered for reading, and edit mode, the raw markdown with line numbers.

A file opens in view mode, with headings, formatted text, clickable links and highlighted code. When you want to change it, switch to edit mode with Cmd+Shift+E or the toolbar's Edit button. Edit mode behaves like a native text editor. The same shortcut takes you back to view mode.

Keeping the two apart keeps both fast. Reading has no syntax in the way, and editing has no rendering in the way. In edit mode, a formatting toolbar appears when you select text, for anyone who prefers clicking to typing markdown syntax.

## Tables and code blocks

Markdown tables render in view mode as aligned grids with bold headers and row separators, and they adjust as you resize the window. To change the pipe-delimited source, switch to edit mode.

Code blocks are highlighted for Swift, Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Go, Rust, Java, Kotlin, C and C++, HTML, CSS, JSON, YAML, Shell, SQL and Ruby. Tables and code both follow light and dark mode.

## File watching

ML-42 watches your project folders with FSEvents, the file-change notifications built into macOS. This matters when you work alongside AI tools that write markdown to disk. Run an agent that updates a plan, and the new version appears in ML-42 without a manual refresh.

It also means ML-42 works well next to other editors. Edit a file in VS Code, switch to ML-42, and you are looking at the latest version.

## Keyboard first

The main actions have keyboard shortcuts, all listed in the menu bar:

- **Cmd+K**: command palette, search everything
- **Cmd+F**: find in the document
- **Cmd+N**: new document
- **Cmd+Shift+N**: new folder
- **Cmd+[** and **Cmd+]**: back and forward
- **Cmd+Shift+E**: switch between view mode and edit mode
- **Cmd+Option+I**: show or hide the inspector
- **Cmd+R**: reload the project
- **Cmd+B** and **Cmd+I**: bold and italic, in edit mode

## Creating files in context

New files go where you are. If you are looking at a folder, a new document or folder is created there. If you are looking at a file, it goes in that file's folder. There is no dialog asking where to save.

## The inspector

The inspector shows different things depending on what you are looking at.

**Documents:** a table of contents built from the headings, and a short summary written on your Mac by Apple Intelligence. Click a heading to scroll there.

**Folders:** recent activity, the files changed most recently, so you can see what has been happening in a project at a glance.

Show or hide it with Cmd+Option+I, or leave it open as a navigation aid.