Auto Markdown Preview

Automatically open Markdown files with a live preview in a horizontal split.

No more pressing Ctrl+K V every time you open a Markdown document.

Features

• Automatically opens Markdown Preview when a .md file is opened.
• Places the preview below the source editor.
• Keeps the source editor focused after opening the preview.
• Adds a manual command: Auto Markdown Preview: Open Preview Down.
• Includes basic settings for enabling/disabling and preview delay.
• Does not modify global VS Code split-view settings.
• Lightweight and dependency-free.

Usage

Open any Markdown file.

Instead of only seeing this:

README.md

You automatically get:

┌──────────────────────────────┐
│ README.md                    │
├──────────────────────────────┤
│ Markdown Preview             │
└──────────────────────────────┘

The preview updates live as you edit.

Commands

Open the Command Palette and run:

Auto Markdown Preview: Open Preview Down

This manually opens the Markdown preview below the active Markdown editor.

Extension Settings

This extension contributes the following settings:

{
  "autoMarkdownPreview.enabled": true,
  "autoMarkdownPreview.delayMs": 100
}

autoMarkdownPreview.enabled

Enable or disable automatic preview opening.

autoMarkdownPreview.delayMs

Delay, in milliseconds, before opening the Markdown preview.

Useful if your workspace or remote environment needs a slightly longer activation delay.

Motivation

VS Code includes an excellent Markdown preview, but opening it requires manually invoking:

Ctrl+K V

If you spend your day writing README files, ADRs, documentation, design notes, wikis, and knowledge-base pages, this quickly becomes repetitive.

This extension makes the preview appear automatically, giving you a documentation-friendly editing flow while staying entirely inside VS Code.

Installation

Install from the Visual Studio Code Marketplace.

Or install manually from a .vsix file:

code --install-extension auto-markdown-preview-*.vsix

Known Limitations

• Complex multi-editor layouts may still require manual adjustment.
• Preview reuse is intentionally conservative in the first release.
• This extension targets local Markdown files with the file URI scheme.

Roadmap

• [ ] Stronger preview reuse across complex layouts
• [ ] Horizontal / vertical layout setting
• [ ] Auto-close preview option
• [ ] Workspace-specific ignore patterns
• [ ] Optional status bar toggle
• [ ] Better remote-workspace behavior

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome.

Repository: https://github.com/yoava/auto-markdown-preview

License

MIT