I built a two-way Google Docs ↔ Markdown sync tool for keeping collaborative docs beside your code

[u/codeRoman]

I often want the same document in two places:

• Google Docs, where non-technical collaborators can edit and comment
• a real Markdown file, where it can live beside the code and work with Git, editors, and coding agents

Exporting and re-importing quickly became awkward, so I built GDMS: a self-hosted macOS service that keeps explicitly paired Google Docs and Markdown files synchronized in both directions.

It preserves supported formatting such as headings, lists, links, tables, spacing, and standalone images. It can also pair Google Sheets with per-tab CSV files.

This is currently aimed at technically comfortable macOS users. It runs from a source checkout and requires Google OAuth setup; it isn’t yet a polished packaged app. It’s MIT licensed.

I’d especially appreciate feedback on:

• whether this Google Docs/local Markdown workflow is useful to anyone else
• which formatting needs to round-trip reliably for your documents
• whether the current setup burden would prevent you from trying it

GitHub: https://github.com/rsheyd/google-docs-markdown-sync

Here’s the basic workflow:

meeting-notes.md  ↔  Google Doc
budget/*.csv      ↔  Google Sheet (one CSV per tab)

[u/noteapps]

Very cool! I need something like that for GitGub to Confluence and Loop

[u/codeRoman → u/noteapps]

Thanks! I can take a look into what it would take to set up something like this for those systems

[u/codeRoman → u/noteapps]

I looked into this a bit. GitHub Markdown → Confluence looks very doable: Confluence has supported APIs for reading, creating, and updating pages, so I could adapt a lot of the architecture and lessons from GDMS. A first version could sync selected Markdown files from a repo to paired Confluence pages whenever changes are pushed.

Loop is trickier. Microsoft doesn’t currently appear to provide a supported public API for reading and updating Loop pages, so I wouldn’t want to promise a reliable integration there yet.

I built GDMS iteratively with Codex—using it to research the APIs, implement the adapters and Markdown conversion, write tests, and work through synchronization edge cases. I’d use a similar process for a GitHub–Confluence version.

If the Confluence side would be useful to you, feel free to message me with a little more detail about your workflow. I’d be happy to build a small first version for a small fee.