colored-md

README

colored-md

A CLI filter for rendering Markdown files with syntax highlighting and formatting directly in your terminal.

It's built on top of the charmbracelet/glamour library, providing a simple wrapper to bring rich, colored Markdown output to your CLI workflows.

SYNOPSIS:

echo -e "# Hello World\nThis is **bold** text." | colored-md

OPTIONS:

• -h, --help Display help message
• -m, --man Display full readme
• -v, --version Display version information (tip: colored-md --version | jq -r .Version)
• -s, --styles List supported styles

FEATURES

• Renders Markdown to ANSI-colored terminal output
• Customizable output width via GLAMOUR_WIDTH environment variable
• Customizable style via GLAMOUR_STYLE environment variable
• Supports overriding styling defaults
• Processes both piped input and specified file paths
• Supports executable markdown files with shebangs
• Autodetects dark/light terminal mode

EXAMPLE SCREENSHOT

INSTALLATION

To install colored-md:

go install github.com/andrew-grechkin/colored-md@latest

USAGE

Piping input

You can pipe Markdown content directly to colored-md:

echo -e "# Hello World\nThis is **bold** text." | colored-md

Processing files

Specify one or more Markdown files as arguments:

colored-md README.md my_document.md

To read from standard input while also processing files, use - as a filename:

cat my_file.md | colored-md - README.md

Executable markdown files

Make markdown files directly executable by adding a shebang:

#!/usr/bin/env -S colored-md
# My Document
Content here...

Then make the file executable and run it:

chmod +x document.md
./document.md

The shebang line will be automatically stripped from the rendered output. See example/executable.md for a working example.

Customize output width

Set the GLAMOUR_WIDTH environment variable to control the word wrap width:

GLAMOUR_WIDTH=80 colored-md README.md

Customize margins

GLAMOUR_OVERRIDE_MARGIN=2 colored-md README.md
GLAMOUR_OVERRIDE_MARGIN_CODE=8 colored-md README.md

Styling

Set the GLAMOUR_STYLE environment variable to control the style:

GLAMOUR_STYLE=dracula colored-md README.md

Every style has following overrides:

• Document prefix and suffix new line is removed
• Undesired margin of 2 spaces on the left side of the whole document
• Code margin is removed

MOTIVATION

Why colored-md over glow?

While glow is a popular Markdown renderer, colored-md was created to address specific shortcomings when used as a CLI filter:

• Undesired directory traversal: glow has functionality to traverse directories and find Markdown files, which is often not desired when simply piping content or processing specific files
• Forced paging in pipelines: glow tends to force paging (e.g., using less) even when used in pipelines, which can disrupt CLI workflows where direct output is expected
• Overrides in styles: glow uses styles provided by glamour as is, as described above these styles have undesired margins and paddings
• Shebang support: Self executable markdown files are not supported

colored-md aims to be a simpler, more predictable CLI filter for Markdown rendering and nothing more, following strictly UNIX philosophy.

AUTHOR

• Andrew Grechkin

LICENSE

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License Version 2 (GPLv2). See the LICENSE file for details.