Install
Put Sheaf in your editor.
Sheaf is MIT licensed and every line of it is on GitHub, so you can read what you are about to run, or hand the repository to your agent and have it read for you. Each release ships the packaged extension with an attestation of the build that made it.
It installs in VS Code and in the editors built on Code OSS, and it will serve a folder to a browser tab for the apps that cannot load an extension at all.
VS Code
Installs from the Visual Studio Marketplace
- Press Cmd+Shift+X (Ctrl+Shift+X on Windows and Linux) to open the Extensions view.
- Search for Sheaf, and install Sheaf Editor: WYSIWYG Markdown, by sheafeditor.
Or from a terminal:
code --install-extension sheafeditor.sheafeditorOn macOS the
codecommand exists once you run Shell Command: Install ‘code’ command in PATH from the Command Palette. Inside the editor, Cmd+P (Ctrl+P on Windows and Linux) thenext install sheafeditor.sheafeditordoes the same thing.Cursor
Installs from Cursor's own marketplace, which serves Open VSX extensions after screening them
- Press Cmd+Shift+X (Ctrl+Shift+X on Windows and Linux) to open the Extensions view.
- Search for Sheaf, and install Sheaf Editor: WYSIWYG Markdown, by sheafeditor.
Or from a terminal:
cursor --install-extension sheafeditor.sheafeditorCursor inherits this command from VS Code rather than documenting it, and
cursorhas to be on your PATH. If it is not there, the Extensions view does the same job.VSCodium
Installs from Open VSX
- Press Cmd+Shift+X (Ctrl+Shift+X on Windows and Linux) to open the Extensions view.
- Search for Sheaf, and install Sheaf Editor: WYSIWYG Markdown, by sheafeditor.
Or from a terminal:
codium --install-extension sheafeditor.sheafeditorVSCodium inherits this command from VS Code rather than documenting it. On Windows the binary is
VSCodium.exe, and the Extensions view is the surer route there.Windsurf
Installs from Open VSX
- Press Cmd+Shift+X (Ctrl+Shift+X on Windows and Linux) to open the Extensions view.
- Search for Sheaf, and install Sheaf Editor: WYSIWYG Markdown, by sheafeditor.
Windsurf is now Devin Desktop, so a recent build says Devin Desktop in the menu bar. The Extensions panel is the way in either way: the terminal command it documents,
devin-desktop, opens folders and nothing else.Kiro
Installs from Open VSX
- Press Cmd+Shift+X (Ctrl+Shift+X on Windows and Linux) to open the Extensions view.
- Search for Sheaf, and install Sheaf Editor: WYSIWYG Markdown, by sheafeditor.
Kiro’s command line runs its agent rather than its editor, so there is no install command to give.
Any other editor built on Code OSS
Every release attaches the packaged extension to its GitHub Release, and a .vsix installs without a registry. Whatever the editor, it needs VS Code 1.90 or newer underneath it.
- Open the latest release and download the
.vsixfrom its assets. - In your editor, open the Command Palette and run Extensions: Install from VSIX. It is also in the Views and More Actions… menu at the top of the Extensions view.
- Pick the file you downloaded.
Or, if that editor has a VS Code style command line:
<editor> --install-extension sheafeditor-<version>.vsixIn a browser, beside anything else
Plenty of apps show you a Markdown file and give you no way to edit it properly. Sheaf serves the folder you have open from your own machine and hands you a link, and anything that can open a link opens your documents in the same editor: a browser window beside Claude Code Desktop, a chat app, a file pane, a second screen.
- Install Sheaf in your editor, above.
- Run Sheaf: Open This Folder in a Browser from the Command Palette. Sheaf gives you the address, with a button to open it and a button to copy it.
- Pick a document from the list the address opens.
Nothing leaves your machine: the address answers on that computer and nowhere else, it serves the one folder you started it in, and it refuses anything outside it. Sheaf: Stop Serving to the Browser ends it, and closing your editor window does too.
Then open a Markdown file
Sheaf makes itself the editor for .md and .markdown, so the next Markdown file you open is rendered and editable in place. Press Cmd+Alt+E (Ctrl+Alt+E on Windows and Linux) for the Markdown behind the block you are in, and Open raw Markdown, at the right of the toolbar, for the whole file as text. CSV and TSV open as a grid through Reopen Editor With… → Sheaf (Grid).
A .txt opens in Sheaf when you ask for it: right-click one and choose Open in Sheaf. Double-clicking still gives you the plain text editor, which is what a log wants, and this is for the notes people keep in a .txt that are Markdown in everything but the name.
If Markdown still opens as plain text, your settings already point .md somewhere else: workbench.editorAssociations wins over anything an extension contributes. To go the other way and open files in Sheaf one at a time instead, set sheaf.useAsDefaultMarkdownEditor to false.
The documentation covers the rest, the demo runs the same editor in this browser, and anything that misbehaves belongs in an issue.