"Write markdown. Ship emails." - I see a particular group of people interested in this, but they have their tools already.
SunshineTheCat•Mar 24, 2026
I think you should probably let that group of people speak for themselves.
I'm in this "group" and see an immediate usefulness of this over what I'm doing now.
Kwpolska•Mar 24, 2026
This appears to be a MJML wrapper with a Markdown→HTML converter attached to it. I think generating HTML from code is easier than generating Markdown, since there are many templating tools that understand HTML escaping. And writing HTML is not that hard, especially for your typical emails, so I'm not really sure if this library would be helpful in the long run.
dallen33•Mar 24, 2026
I like the idea of this tool, as writing Markdown for some people is probably easier than HTML. I mean, use whatever floats your boat. I like that this exists.
j45•Mar 24, 2026
Also a way to use fewer standards for storage of input and created text.
koakuma-chan•Mar 24, 2026
I wish people just sent plain text.
XCSme•Mar 24, 2026
What about images, links?
Formatted text like bold or underline?
I also prefer plain text, but in most of my emails I talk about technical stuff, or I send transactional emails that require actions, in which case showing buttons is a much better user experience than plain text.
loloquwowndueo•Mar 24, 2026
I don’t want buttons in my emails.
XCSme•Mar 24, 2026
But they are a lot easier to see and click (accessibility, larger hit area).
You could have a larger text instead of a button, but changing font size is also HTML and not plain-text anymore.
koakuma-chan•Mar 24, 2026
You can just send a link, and the user's client will probably highlight it even if it is plain text.
recursivegirth•Mar 24, 2026
Yea, but how will they hide all the tracking URLs and base64 encoded PII from you in the email?
koakuma-chan•Mar 24, 2026
Using a URL shortener obviously. But you are right, if they only send plain text, they won't be able to include those 1x1 images at the bottom to track whether you have opened the email. Any sane email client blocks images by default, but whatever.
loloquwowndueo•Mar 24, 2026
I don’t have problems seeing and clicking normal text, thank you very much. I don’t want buttons on my emails.
XCSme•Mar 24, 2026
I think the OP app is meant for creating transactional emails (or bulk-send emails like newsletters).
Those templates should account for all types of people and accessibility levels (including things like ADHD, where you need a big red button to click, otherwise you get overwhelmed by a block of text).
antiframe•Mar 24, 2026
Every MUA I've used allows the reader to set a font size, so changing font sizes is 100% a feature of plain-text emails. Then they get the link the size they need to read it correctly and it's absolutely easy to read. This here comment is pain text. Is it hard to read this link:
I don't think so. I certainly didn't have to resort to HTML to make that link readable and clickable.
linhns•Mar 24, 2026
A picture is worth a thousand words.
pembrook•Mar 24, 2026
Plain text? Pffft.
Human language is an unnecessary abstraction, just like images.
I wish everyone would communicate in pure Binary.
ape4•Mar 24, 2026
Yeah, the first example on that site doesn't need any formatting.
It just says your code is <code>
nailer•Mar 24, 2026
I don't. Plain text is typically formatted for 72-78 monospace characters - even if you don't want formatting, the text will look bad on any device that doesn't match IBM's 80-character punch cards from 1928.
Avamander•Mar 24, 2026
In theory format=flowed solves that, but the same boomers that despise HTML mail also refuse to provide that accommodation, for anyone not behind a teletype.
KhushaliT•Mar 24, 2026
templates are cool but seems too heavy to land in primary inbox
pembrook•Mar 24, 2026
I like how you aren't hiding the fact this is MJML under the hood and don't layer complex abstractions over MJML spec like similar projects (cough react email cough).
The devs maintaining MJML deserve so much credit for dealing with Gmail/Outlook's monopoly bullshit and 2007 html.
Nice idea for those who manage content in markdown. I've moved away from putting emails in my codebase, but seems great for founders moving fast.
dancablam•Mar 24, 2026
Thanks! I agree - the MJML team has laid so much groundwork and it frankly made this project possible.
r1290•Mar 25, 2026
What’s your opinion on react email?
binaryturtle•Mar 24, 2026
Any "HTML emails" get filtered straight into the spam folder here. I think I'm not part of the target audience here.
Lord_Zero•Mar 25, 2026
Is that a thing? Is it safer to use plain text emails?
mghackerlady•Mar 25, 2026
Very much so. While a lot of mail clients block images, they can be used to track you. Hell a lot of HTML can be used to track you if you're smart about it
unmole•Mar 25, 2026
> Is that a thing?
There must be literally dozens of people who do this.
SergeAx•Mar 25, 2026
How do you deal with things like "we sent you a one-time code to confirm your login"? Most of those are HTML-formatted today
ph4rsikal•Mar 24, 2026
Markdown is the secret winner of the AI early years.
hatmatrix•Mar 24, 2026
cries in org-mode
terminalgravity•Mar 24, 2026
I feel you on this too.
phyzix5761•Mar 24, 2026
org-mode is amazing for humans. I, as a real human and not a robot, use it every day.
theanonymousone•Mar 24, 2026
I hope .md domains do not become a security hole as Markdown raises in popularity...
Imustaskforhelp•Mar 24, 2026
This reminds me of the infamous dot zip domain and the security chaos that had followed.
brian93512•Mar 24, 2026
That's a valid concern, especially given the confusion we saw with .zip or .mov TLDs. But from a security engineering perspective, the bigger 'Markdown hole' I worry about is injection. When we render untrusted AI output into HTML for email, the sanitization pipeline becomes critical. I'd be curious to see how this library handles potential XSS vectors during the MD-to-HTML conversion.
Igor_Wiwi•Mar 24, 2026
I am working on smth similar markdown reader for humans, not agents - https://mdview.io
matzalazar•Mar 24, 2026
Great project! And if you don't mind a little workaround and some Python scripting, you can turn a regular Obsidian folder into an automatic outbox. Write markdown, drag, drop, and ship.
safehuss•Mar 24, 2026
Anything that makes email development easier is great I guess, but have personally found MJML great for solving the issues you'd run into, and not sure I want yet another abstraction layer on top of that which makes it more limited...
seer•Mar 25, 2026
They address this in the docs - it is meant to make authoring the content easier for LLMs since that is easy for them to write.
It still uses MJML for the actual templates, but it is a translation layer between markdown and the template itself.
If you need to author a lot of emails with LLM this does seem like it would be a great fit.
vanillameow•Mar 25, 2026
If you need to author a lot of emails with LLM you should be rethinking your business strategy tbh
deanputney•Mar 24, 2026
Curious why the CLI function is `mvd` instead of `mdv`?
dancablam•Mar 24, 2026
What CLI function?
articsputnik•Mar 24, 2026
Love everything to Markdownify :) I was just wondering, is there a Neovim/Markdown email client? Potentially using something like this? I love Neomutt, or Newsboat, and other TUIs. It would be great to have something totally on Markdown. Update: I gave it a spin [1] with Go and some of my favorite CLI's.
Nice usage of admonitions. This is a great example of how eloquent markdown can be. Still very readable while even including the markup for 'footer' and the call out code.
gojomo•Mar 24, 2026
Which email client will stylize raw markdown itself, making the HTML step here superfluous?
Avamander•Mar 24, 2026
It would first require a standard for Markdown. After that there would be very little stopping anyone from implementing it. I guess a MIME type for standard Markdown would also be nice.
Pretty sure I've said it before, but it would be a nice middle ground between text and all the complexity HTML+CSS brings in (if you want to compete with other HTML clients).
SoftTalker•Mar 25, 2026
The idea of Markdown was that it was supposed to be readable in plain text without any stylizing.
johanvts•Mar 25, 2026
Emacs ofc :) seriously it should not be too much work although org-mode syntax would be even easier, there is a markdown mode here: https://jblevins.org/projects/markdown-mode/
The email part is not something i have done myself but it has been a feature for a very long time and you can find plenty of guides online.
Escapade5160•Mar 24, 2026
At this point markdown is going to be the foundation of the entire AI web. Someone the other day showed off Markdown as a responsive frontend protocol. Now we've got email. How long until we're writing classes in markdown? We can only abstract this so far before we confuse AI more than help it.
whattheheckheck•Mar 25, 2026
Look up Configuration Complexity clock
Barbing•Mar 24, 2026
Very nice. I think the kind of folks attracted to this thread might have some thoughts on a workflow I'm interested in.
When I see a news article, I want to be able to click a button on my Mac or iPhone to send the text of the article in the body of the email. Bonus points for rehosting the images from the article. And using a similar font both without carrying over any of the original external dependencies.
Normally it’s good to support the journalist but I cannot in good conscience send a link to elderly folks when this is so much safer.
johanvts•Mar 24, 2026
Use the browser reader mode, select all, right click send email. Is it something like that you want?
Barbing•Mar 25, 2026
Thank you! Great trick that comes pretty close.
Ringz•Mar 25, 2026
If only there was a faster way to „select all“!
runtype•Mar 24, 2026
Would love to use this - any plans for Cloudflare Workers support? Some of the node APIs you're using block it from working on Cloudflare right now.
dancablam•Mar 25, 2026
Good idea. I'll look into this.
dancablam•Mar 25, 2026
Added support for cloudflare workers in 0.1.2. Thanks for the tip!
josegonzalez•Mar 24, 2026
This plus a block-based editor like editorjs would be a great addition to any custom cms.
Lord_Zero•Mar 25, 2026
Does anyone use MJML in golang? What package are you using?
razvan_maftei•Mar 25, 2026
I'm not exactly following as to who this is for - people are going to use email templates instead of writing Markdown emails, and agents can just as easily spit out HTML. Seems like your solution is in search of a problem.
vindin•Mar 25, 2026
This problem was solved almost 15 years ago
ksajadi•Mar 25, 2026
This is great! I’d love to see this supported in SendOps!
mghackerlady•Mar 25, 2026
Or, hear me out. Just send the markdown and skip the HTML bullshit. Any mail client will render markdown fine and the ones that don't either aren't worth using or don't want HTML mail in the first place. HTML email is the worst thing to ever happen to the internet
deknos•Mar 25, 2026
i never understood why the markdown mime type was not used in emailclients in webclients or desktop programs...
that would eliminate most html usage and enable longer texts than 70-85 characters per line.
25 Comments
I'm in this "group" and see an immediate usefulness of this over what I'm doing now.
I also prefer plain text, but in most of my emails I talk about technical stuff, or I send transactional emails that require actions, in which case showing buttons is a much better user experience than plain text.
You could have a larger text instead of a button, but changing font size is also HTML and not plain-text anymore.
Those templates should account for all types of people and accessibility levels (including things like ADHD, where you need a big red button to click, otherwise you get overwhelmed by a block of text).
http://microsoft.com/
I don't think so. I certainly didn't have to resort to HTML to make that link readable and clickable.
Human language is an unnecessary abstraction, just like images.
I wish everyone would communicate in pure Binary.
The devs maintaining MJML deserve so much credit for dealing with Gmail/Outlook's monopoly bullshit and 2007 html.
Nice idea for those who manage content in markdown. I've moved away from putting emails in my codebase, but seems great for founders moving fast.
There must be literally dozens of people who do this.
It still uses MJML for the actual templates, but it is a translation layer between markdown and the template itself.
If you need to author a lot of emails with LLM this does seem like it would be a great fit.
[1] https://x.com/sspaeti/status/2036539855182627169
Pretty sure I've said it before, but it would be a nice middle ground between text and all the complexity HTML+CSS brings in (if you want to compete with other HTML clients).
When I see a news article, I want to be able to click a button on my Mac or iPhone to send the text of the article in the body of the email. Bonus points for rehosting the images from the article. And using a similar font both without carrying over any of the original external dependencies.
Normally it’s good to support the journalist but I cannot in good conscience send a link to elderly folks when this is so much safer.
that would eliminate most html usage and enable longer texts than 70-85 characters per line.