Gloss - VS Code Extension

Gloss through your markdown without touching it.

A distraction-free markdown reader for VS Code. Open to read, explicitly switch to edit.

Features

Reading Mode

• Auto-preview on open — Markdown files open in a beautifully rendered view by default
• Close source tab — Automatically closes the editor tab, leaving only the preview
• Edit command — Press Cmd+Shift+E to switch to edit mode instantly
• Pattern matching — Configure which files open in reading mode with glob patterns
• Zen mode — Optionally enter Zen Mode when opening markdown

Rich Rendering

• Syntax highlighting — Code blocks with full highlight.js support
• Mermaid diagrams — Fenced ```mermaid blocks render as interactive diagrams
• KaTeX math — Inline $...$, display $$...$$, and LaTeX delimiters \(...\) / \[...\]
• YAML frontmatter stripping — Frontmatter is hidden from the rendered view
• Image rendering — Local and remote images display inline
• Copy buttons — Hover over any code block to copy with one click
• Theme awareness — Automatically matches your VS Code dark/light theme
• Heading anchors — Click TOC links to navigate within the document

Tools

• Find in page — Cmd+F to search within the rendered view, Cmd+G to navigate matches
• Print support — Cmd+P to print with optimized layout (no chrome, clean page breaks)

Configuration

{
  "gloss.enabled": true,
  "gloss.patterns": ["**/*.md", "**/*.markdown"],
  "gloss.exclude": ["**/CHANGELOG.md"],
  "gloss.zenMode": false,
  "gloss.closeSourceTab": true,
  "gloss.showStatusBar": true
}

Commands

Privacy

No telemetry, no analytics. Gloss runs entirely locally.

CDN dependencies (loaded only when needed):

• highlight.js — Syntax highlighting for code blocks (loaded on every render)
• mermaid.js — Diagram rendering (loaded only when the document contains ```mermaid blocks)
• KaTeX — Math rendering (loaded only when the document contains $, $$, \(, or \[ delimiters)

No other network requests are made. No data is sent anywhere.

Development

cd extension
npm install
npm run compile
# Press F5 in VS Code to launch Extension Development Host

License

MIT