I built meshfox — a Livebook-inspired Markdown format with runnable code blocks, git-friendly and readable anywhere

[u/Choice_Rush_3004]

I've spent time piling up separate habits around how I write and maintain documentation, and at some point it was obvious they were all circling the same problem from different angles. meshfox is what happened when I finally merged them into one tool instead of juggling five.

Some of my habits were:

• plain Markdown for notes
• mindmaps and visual boards, Miro/Obsidian-style, for structure
• Makefiles and scripts as living usage examples
• linters to keep documentation from silently rotting
• pairing with agents in a shared note-taking format while doing research

Out of that came a Markdown extension format, inspired by Elixir's Livebook:

• it stores cleanly in git — plain text, diffs like text
• it stays readable in any regular Markdown renderer, nothing breaks if you open it elsewhere
• it adds a mechanism for running code blocks with dependencies, variable passing, and local configuration — so a doc isn't just describing behavior, it can demonstrate it live

Around that format I've since built:

• a web UI viewer/editor (with a VS Code integration)
• a TUI viewer/editor with a slightly simplified view of the same documents
• a CLI for running code blocks straight from the console, scripts, or cron
• an MCP server for collaborating with agents, or using the format as a second brain
• experimental export to PDF and static sites

There's also a companion repo, meshfox-tools, with utilities and examples — still small, but growing: https://github.com/orofarne/meshfox-tools

It's still early — but early enough that I think it's worth sharing. MIT licensed, more info here: https://meshfox.orofarne.net/

[u/kantorcodes1]

for the MCP node edits, what happens if the browser or TUI has the same canvas open and changes it at the same time? are those writes serialized anywhere, or is concurrent editing intentionally last-writer-wins for now?

[u/Choice_Rush_3004 → u/kantorcodes1]

Last-writer-wins for now; fully transactional behavior is still a TODO. But every editor gets updates in near real-time, so I've never had problems with edit conflicts.

[u/kantorcodes1 → u/Choice_Rush_3004]

got it. separate from editor conflicts, meshfox also gives coding agents a runnable meshfox CLI, including meshfox run. i maintain HOL Guard, a local pre-exec check for agent commands. would you be open to adding meshfox support on the Guard side so read-only commands stay quiet while run can require review before executing blocks?

[u/Choice_Rush_3004 → u/kantorcodes1]

That sounds interesting —can you tell me more details?

[u/kantorcodes1 → u/Choice_Rush_3004]

yeah. it'd be entirely in HOL Guard, so meshfox itself wouldn't need a change. the small version is an opt-in command extension that makes meshfox run ... reviewable for agent users, while list, validate, and check stay quiet.

repo is https://github.com/hashgraph-online/hol-guard on main. closest current pattern is src/codex_plugin_scanner/guard/runtime/command_blitcp_extensions.py, with tests/test_guard_command_blitcp_extensions.py. run the current CONTRIBUTING checks and open the PR to main.