vscode-mdcomments

Note: This extension is a UX/DX demonstration and is not production-ready. It may break or behave unexpectedly. Use it to explore the mdcomments workflow, not in a production environment. You can try it by installing the latest .vsix package from GitHub Releases.

A VS Code extension for mdcomments with a dedicated interactive preview panel, letting you view, add, and reply to comments directly in .md files.

Features

Interactive Preview

Open any .md file and run mdcomments: Open Interactive Preview. The extension opens a custom side-by-side preview with a comment sidebar, with:

Author avatars, names, and dates
Threaded replies
Status badges (open / resolved)
Highlighted anchor text with 💬 badges
Click a highlight ↔︎ focus the sidebar card (and vice versa)
Inline Reply and + New buttons that trigger extension actions directly
Create a new thread straight from preview: select text, right-click, then choose New thread from selection

Add Comment (command)

Open a .md file in the editor.
Select the text you want to comment on.
Run mdcomments: Add Comment from the Command Palette or the editor context menu.
Enter your author name (or set mdcomments.defaultAuthor in settings). If unset, the extension tries VS Code GitHub account name, then Git user.name. and comment text.

The extension wraps the selected text in ==…== highlight markers, inserts a [^c-N] reference, and appends a properly formatted footnote definition at the end of the file.

Reply to Comment (command)

Place your cursor near a comment marker or inside a thread definition.
Run mdcomments: Reply to Comment from the Command Palette or context menu.
Pick the thread, enter author and reply text.

The reply is inserted at the end of the chosen thread block.

Settings

Setting	Default	Description
`mdcomments.defaultAuthor`	`""`	Author name for new comments. If empty, auto-detects from VS Code GitHub account, then Git `user.name`, otherwise prompts.
`mdcomments.commentPlacement`	`"nearAnchor"`	Unified behavior for both preview and editor: `sidebar` keeps preview sidebar and no editor-side snippets; `nearAnchor` enables right-side near-anchor comments in both places (Google Docs style).

mdcomments Format (quick reference)

Revenue grew by 15%[^c-rev1].

[^c-rev1]:
    @alice (2026-02-10):
    > Is this YoY?

    @bob (2026-02-11):
    > Yes. Added a clarifying note.

See the full specification in the specification.md file in the mdcomments repository.

Installation

Download the latest extension package (.vsix) from:

GitHub Releases

Install it in VS Code:

Open Extensions view.
Click ... (top-right menu).
Choose Install from VSIX….
Select the downloaded vscode-mdcomments-*.vsix file.

Or with the VS Code CLI:

code --install-extension vscode-mdcomments-*.vsix --force

Development

cd vscode-mdcomments
npm install
npm run compile   # or: npm run watch

Then press F5 in VS Code to launch the Extension Development Host.