PowerWiki — a modern wiki for Azure DevOps
The wiki you already have, the experience it deserves. PowerWiki adds a Power Wiki hub next to the built-in Azure DevOps Wiki and reads and writes the same wiki Git repositories. No migration, no proprietary formats, no lock-in — turn it off tomorrow and your wiki is untouched.
Why teams switch
- 🧜 Today's Mermaid, today's Markdown. Mermaid v11 (architecture, kanban, sankey, xy-chart, mindmap, timeline and more), GitHub-style callouts, KaTeX math, syntax-highlighted code — instead of the frozen renderers bundled with Azure DevOps.
- 📤 Export to Word and PDF. Turn one page — or an ordered set of pages — into a real
.docx with native Word heading styles and equations, or a print-perfect PDF. Diagrams, query tables, and images included.
- 🕑 Never lose the thread. Page history with side-by-side diffs and one-click restore, follow pages for change notifications, and safe renames that fix inbound links for you.
- 🧩 Azure Boards, live on the page.
#1234 becomes a rich work item badge; ::: query-table <id> ::: embeds live query results — and both stay readable as plain text in the built-in wiki.
- ✍️ An editor you'll actually enjoy. Monaco (the VS Code editor) with a
/ command palette, keyboard shortcuts, page-link and attachment pickers, autosaved drafts, and a WYSIWYG mode with in-context table editing.
Reading, upgraded
- Current CommonMark + GFM pipeline,
[[_TOC_]] and [[_TOSP_]] support, and native-feeling deep links.
- Mermaid v11 with automatic light/dark theming, a fit-to-screen pan/zoom viewer, and SVG download. Works with
```mermaid fences and ::: mermaid blocks alike.
- LaTeX math with KaTeX (
$inline$ and $$display$$).
- Callouts (
> [!NOTE], [!TIP], [!WARNING]…), heading permalinks that copy a shareable Azure DevOps link, click-to-zoom images, and copy buttons on code blocks.
- Per-page byline (last editor and time, straight from Git history) and page comments.
Writing, without friction
- Monaco Markdown editor with live split preview, word wrap, and Azure DevOps theming.
- Type
/ for anything: headings, tables, code blocks, every Mermaid diagram type, draw.io diagrams, work-item references, query tables, links.
- Ctrl+B / Ctrl+I / Ctrl+K, a searchable page-link picker, and an attachment picker for files you've already uploaded.
- Paste or drop images into any editor — they upload to
.attachments and the reference is inserted for you.
- Rich text mode with a floating table toolbar: insert, delete, and reorder rows and columns right at the table.
- Never lose work: unsaved-changes protection on refresh/close and local draft autosave with one-click recovery.
Diagrams you can actually edit
- Draw with draw.io, without leaving the wiki. Hit Diagram in the editor toolbar (or type
/diagram) for a full draw.io canvas — shapes, connectors, the whole shape library.
- Edit any diagram in place. Hover a diagram on a page and click Edit diagram. It reopens exactly as you drew it, not as a flat picture.
- Reuse one diagram across many pages. Reference the same diagram wherever it's relevant; edit it from any of those pages and every page updates. No more six stale copies of the same architecture diagram.
- Stored as a normal image. Each diagram is saved to
.attachments as a .drawio.png — a real PNG that happens to carry its own source. It renders in the built-in Azure DevOps Wiki, drops into Word and PDF exports like any other image, and keeps working if you ever stop using PowerWiki.
- Nothing leaves your browser. The editor loads only while you have it open, and diagram content is exchanged in-page rather than uploaded to a third party. Pages with diagrams on them never contact diagrams.net at all.
History and stewardship
- Page history from Git: browse revisions, compare side by side (changes per revision or against current), and restore any version through the normal save path.
- Follow pages to get Azure DevOps notifications when they change — the same subscriptions the built-in wiki uses.
- Attachment manager: browse everything in
.attachments with previews and copy Markdown references in a click.
- Safe renames: when you move or rename a page, PowerWiki finds every inbound link, shows you the affected pages, and updates them on confirm.
Export that looks like you spent all day on it
- Word (.docx): Markdown headings become real Word heading styles (navigation pane ready), equations become native editable Word math, Mermaid renders as crisp images, and tables/images/query results come across.
- PDF: full-fidelity print with selectable text.
- Export one page, or select and order any set of pages from a tree into a single document.
Your content stays yours
PowerWiki stores nothing outside your wiki's Git repository. Every page remains plain, portable Markdown that renders in the built-in wiki, in clones, and in any Markdown tool. PowerWiki-specific niceties (badges, query tables, callouts) degrade to readable text everywhere else. The built-in wiki stays available to your whole team — PowerWiki is purely additive.
Requirements & permissions
- An Azure DevOps project with at least one wiki (Services; Server where extension APIs are available).
- Scopes: Wiki (read/write) for pages and attachments; Work Items (read) for badges and query tables; Code (read) for page history, the byline, and attachment listings from the wiki's Git repository; Notifications (write) for follow/unfollow page subscriptions.
- Light, dark, and custom Azure DevOps themes are detected automatically.
Open source
PowerWiki is MIT-licensed and developed in the open at github.com/pete-mc/PowerWiki. Read the source before you install it — and see exactly what it does with the permissions it asks for.
Install it, open Power Wiki in your project, and give your wiki the experience it deserves.
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