xEdit MCP server

xEdit

A free, open-source Markdown editor and lightweight alternative to Notion and Obsidian for writing and personal notes — local files, a comfortable editor, and AI access over MCP.

Try it online · 中文介绍 · Deployment guide · MCP setup · Feishu import

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xEdit is a live-preview Markdown editor that runs in the browser (plus a Mac app). Notes are plain Markdown, linked with [[wiki links]], organized with slash commands and drag-and-drop folders, and to-dos written anywhere roll up into a Today view. Keep notes in the browser, in a local folder of .md files, or sign in for cloud sync — and let AI clients like Claude read and write your notes through the built-in MCP server.

No account required: open xedit.me and start writing.

Who it's for

• People who write articles, reports and reading notes in Markdown and want live preview without building a whole note system
• Anyone who wants free cloud sync and an instant web app — or no account at all, with files in their own folder
• People who want Claude and other MCP clients to search, organize and edit their notes
• Writers who publish to WeChat Official Accounts or Zhihu and want formatting that survives the paste

If you need databases, board views or real-time team editing, Notion is the better tool. If you rely on a backlinks panel, graph view or community plugins, stick with Obsidian. See the comparison below.

Where your notes live

Mode	When	Where the data is	Synced to the cloud?
Browser storage	Default when not signed in	This browser on this device; clearing site data deletes it	Uploaded to your account automatically once you sign in
Local Markdown folder	Not signed in, Chrome / Edge (File System Access API)	A folder on your disk, one .md file per note	No — never uploaded, even after you sign in; back it up your own way
Cloud sync	Signed in	The server is the source of truth; each device keeps an offline mirror	Yes — the same notes on the web, the Mac app and every device

Version history, image uploads, share links and MCP access work on cloud notes only.

What's free

xedit.me has no paid plan today, and you can self-host the whole thing under the MIT license.

• Without an account: every editing feature, browser or local-folder storage, export to Markdown / HTML / PDF / PNG / Word, and copy to WeChat / Zhihu
• With a free account: cloud sync of notes, folders, version history and images; share links with reader comments; MCP access. No device limit
• Limits: images up to 10 MB and videos up to 100 MB each; a per-account media storage quota (uploads stop when it's full, existing files stay); the latest 100 versions are kept per note
• MCP: connecting is free. Your AI client's own subscription or API usage is between you and that provider
• AI review (beta): enabled per account with a daily cap. The model runs on the site's keys, so users don't bring their own; self-hosters configure providers in /admin

Features

Writing

• Two editing modes: Obsidian-style Live Preview (headings, bold, code and images render in place; the line under the cursor shows its source) or a side-by-side split view — switch any time
• Slash commands for headings, callouts, tables, to-dos, code blocks, images and video; search in Chinese, pinyin or English
• Obsidian-style callouts (> [!tip]), YAML frontmatter, footnotes, heading folding, $inline$ / $$block$$ math (MathJax) and syntax-highlighted code

Organizing

• [[Wiki links]]: autocomplete by title, [[title|alias]], and renaming a note updates every link to it (there's no backlinks panel or graph view yet)
• To-dos and Today: - [ ] with @tomorrow, @10/20, a date range or @daily rolls up into a Today view; checking an item there edits the source line
• Nested folders with drag-and-drop, global search (⌘O), context menus and a recoverable trash
• Feishu Wiki import: import a whole wiki as documents, with its tree mapped to folders and images re-hosted → Guide

Sync and sharing

• Cloud sync and offline: keep writing offline — changes land in a local mirror and sync once you're back online
• Version history: automatic snapshots plus manual saves, line-by-line diffs and one-click rollback (the current draft is backed up first)
• Share links: readers need no account and can comment on selected text, images or video; you reply on the shared page
• Export: Markdown / standalone HTML / print-ready PDF / full-length PNG / Word (keeps headings, lists, tables and images; imports into Feishu)
• Image hosting: paste or drop images and video to upload them to Alibaba Cloud OSS, managed in a media library
• Mac app: same account and data, persistent login, native menus and shortcuts, offline shell (macOS 12+, Apple Silicon; the installer isn't code-signed yet)

AI

• MCP server: built-in, with self-hosted OAuth 2.1 (dynamic client registration + PKCE), so Claude Desktop, Cursor and other clients can list, search, create and edit your documents and images once authorized; revoke access any time in Settings → Setup guide
• AI review (beta): reads the whole piece and flags awkward sentences, wordiness, word choice, logic gaps and WeChat Official Account compliance risks, with each suggestion pinned to its sentence; accept or ignore in one click

Use case: WeChat Official Accounts and Zhihu

The WeChat editor strips <style>, class and pseudo-elements, which is why most formatting falls apart on paste. xEdit inlines every theme rule onto each tag at copy time, so you can ⌘V straight into WeChat or Zhihu and keep headings, blockquotes, code blocks, tables and math intact.

• 13 layout themes (gallery), 6 code color schemes with an optional Mac-style window frame, and custom CSS layered on top
• WeChat mode inlines all CSS and preserves code indentation with  /<br>; Zhihu mode converts math to images and leaves code highlighting to Zhihu
• Links to footnotes: external links become "text[n]" with a reference list, since WeChat articles don't allow them
• Math is rendered to SVG before copying, so it survives WeChat's lack of MathML support

xEdit vs Obsidian and Notion

xEdit is a lightweight writing and notes tool, not a full replacement for either. This reflects what ships today:

	xEdit	Obsidian	Notion
Price / source	Free, MIT open source	Free for personal use, closed source; Sync is paid	Free plan, paid tiers; closed source
Format	Plain Markdown	Local Markdown files	Cloud blocks; Markdown import/export
Local files	Local folder in Chrome / Edge (not cloud-synced)	Native local vault	Cloud-first
Cloud sync	Free with an account	Paid Sync or bring your own	Built in
Runs in the browser	Yes, plus a Mac app	No (desktop / mobile apps)	Yes, plus apps
[[Wiki links]]	Yes, with rename updates	Yes	Page links and @ mentions
Backlinks panel / graph view	Not yet	Yes	Backlinks yes, no graph
Databases	No (plain Markdown tables only)	Via Bases / plugins	Core feature
Plugins	None; Obsidian plugins don't work	Large ecosystem	Integrations
Real-time collaboration	No (share links with comments)	No	Yes
AI	Built-in MCP server	Community plugins	Notion AI and integrations
Mobile app	Not yet	iOS / Android	iOS / Android

xEdit can open an existing Obsidian vault folder and edit its .md files, but Obsidian plugins, settings and canvases don't carry over. Obsidian and Notion details reflect their public feature sets as of October 2026.

Quick start

Prerequisites: Node.js 20+ and PostgreSQL 14+.

# 1. Clone and install
git clone https://github.com/rotbit/xedit.git
cd xedit
npm install

# 2. Set up the database (macOS example; on other platforms just install PostgreSQL)
brew install postgresql@17 && brew services start postgresql@17
createdb xedit

# 3. Configure environment variables
cp .env.example .env
#    At minimum set DATABASE_URL; generate AUTH_SECRET with the line below
openssl rand -base64 32

# 4. Create tables
npx prisma migrate dev

# 5. Start
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:3000. It runs without GitHub/Google OAuth or OSS configured — write locally without signing in. Configure a third-party provider for cloud sync and OSS for media uploads.

Environment variables

See .env.example for the full list. Quick reference:

Variable	Required	Description
DATABASE_URL	✅	PostgreSQL connection string, e.g. postgresql://user:pass@localhost:5432/xedit
AUTH_SECRET	✅	Signing key for sessions and MCP tokens; generate with openssl rand -base64 32
AUTH_URL		Recommended behind a reverse proxy, e.g. https://example.com
NEXT_PUBLIC_SITE_URL		Public URL used for canonical / OG / sitemap, without a trailing slash
AUTH_GITHUB_ID / AUTH_GITHUB_SECRET		Enables GitHub login when set
AUTH_GOOGLE_ID / AUTH_GOOGLE_SECRET		Enables Google login when set
AUTH_WECHAT_ENABLED		Explicit switch for WeChat login; set to 1 or true to enable
AUTH_WECHAT_ID / AUTH_WECHAT_SECRET		AppID / AppSecret of a "Website App" on WeChat Open Platform; requires a business-verified Open Platform account
OSS_REGION / OSS_ACCESS_KEY_ID / OSS_ACCESS_KEY_SECRET / OSS_BUCKET		Alibaba Cloud OSS image hosting; use a RAM sub-account scoped to that bucket only
OSS_CDN_DOMAIN		Bound CDN / custom domain
AI_ENCRYPTION_KEY		Master key for encrypting AI provider keys; derived from AUTH_SECRET if empty
REPLICATE_API_TOKEN		Replicate token for AI-generated covers; enables the "AI Generate" tab. Billed to the site's account and limited to accounts in ADMIN_EMAILS
REPLICATE_MODEL		Image model, defaults to black-forest-labs/flux-schnell; pin a version as owner/name:version. No need to check the model's inputs yourself: unsupported aspect ratios and optional fields are corrected from the upstream error and retried. The prompt is a fixed template that asks for the Chinese title to be drawn into the image, so pick a model that renders Chinese text well — the default flux-schnell doesn't and produces garbled characters
REPLICATE_ASPECT_RATIO		Cover aspect ratio; empty = auto: tries 21:9 first, and falls back to the widest landscape ratio the model supports
COVER_GENERATE_TIMEOUT_SEC / COVER_GENERATE_DAILY_LIMIT		Per-generation timeout (default 90 s) and generations per account per day (default 20)
ADMIN_EMAILS		Comma-separated super-admin email allowlist; enables the /admin dashboard when set
DEFAULT_STORAGE_QUOTA_MB		Per-account media storage quota in MB, default 10240 (10 GB); adjustable per account in the admin dashboard

Key security: all secrets stay on the server. Image uploads are proxied through /api/upload, so the OSS AccessKey never reaches the browser; AI provider keys entered in the admin dashboard are encrypted with AES-256-GCM before being stored, and plaintext never hits the database.

Deployment

The repo ships a Dockerfile (Next.js standalone output; prisma migrate deploy runs automatically when the container starts).

See the deployment guide for the full walkthrough: Docker / Docker Compose, one-click Dokploy, domains and HTTPS, production OAuth setup, and upgrades and rollbacks.

Tech stack

Next.js 16 (App Router) · React 19 · TypeScript · Tailwind CSS v4 · CodeMirror 6 · markdown-it · highlight.js · MathJax (SVG) · DOMPurify · Auth.js v5 · Prisma + PostgreSQL · ali-oss · Zustand · MCP SDK

How copying to WeChat works

Markdown → markdown-it render → DOMPurify sanitize
        → links to footnotes → code block newlines/spaces to <br>/&nbsp;
        → CSS inlining (browser CSSOM parsing + querySelectorAll matching, cascaded by specificity)
        → strip class/id/data-* → selection copy (text/html)

All theme decorations use real elements (such as span.prefix/.content/.suffix inside headings) and data URI background images rather than pseudo-elements, so nothing is lost when pasting into WeChat.

Project structure

src/
├── app/                # Pages and API routes
│   ├── api/            # documents / categories / assets / settings / stats
│   │                   # upload / ai / auth / oauth / mcp
│   ├── edit/           # Editor page (/edit local draft, /edit/[id] cloud document)
│   ├── oauth/          # Consent page for MCP clients
│   └── page.tsx        # Landing page + workspace
├── components/         # Shared cross-feature components and dialogs
├── features/
│   ├── editor/         # Editor toolbar, export, copy menu
│   ├── landing/        # Landing page (server-rendered, interactive mockup, SEO)
│   ├── stats/          # Writing stats and the ink sprite
│   └── workspace/      # Document list, category tree, drag and drop, trash
├── lib/
│   ├── markdown/       # markdown-it config and plugins (math, structured headings, etc.)
│   ├── themes/         # Themes (base + 13 presets) and code theme registry
│   ├── copy/           # Style inliner, WeChat/Zhihu copy pipelines, clipboard
│   ├── oauth/          # Self-hosted OAuth 2.1 server (AS + RS)
│   ├── ai/             # Provider catalog, key encryption, server-side calls
│   └── export.ts       # MD / HTML / PDF / PNG export
├── store/              # Zustand global state (with local persistence)
└── auth.ts             # Auth.js config
prisma/                 # Data model and migrations
public/code-themes/     # highlight.js code theme CSS

Contributing

Issues and PRs are welcome. Please make sure npm run lint and npm run build pass before opening a PR.

To add a theme, add an entry to src/lib/themes/presets.ts following the existing format. Don't use pseudo-elements for decorations — WeChat drops them.

License

MIT © rotbit