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Project ideas from Hacker News discussions.

Emacs 31: An unofficial guide to Markdown-ts-mode

Original Article

Hacker News Discussion

📝 Discussion Summary (Click to expand)

Three prevalent themes in the discussion

1. Emacs’ new tree‑sitter based Markdown mode (markdown-ts-mode)

Users are weighing the benefits of the built‑in, experimental mode that leverages tree‑sitter for parsing and highlighting against the existing markdown-mode and concerns about its maturity.

  • “ts stands for 'tree-sitter', meaning this mode uses tree-sitter under the hood, which is, among other things, very performant.” – RahulMJ
  • “For those of us who have just been using Emacs… 'ts-mode' refers to a mode which uses tree-sitter for parsing, highlighting etc.” – pjdesno
  • “In Emacs 31 none of what you’re saying is true. Grammars auto‑install and setting them up is easy.” – femiagbabiaka (counter‑point to early criticism)
  • “Tree sitter support is half baked… users have to find a grammar and compile it themselves.” – dleslie

2. Generative‑AI coding workflows inside Emacs

A large share of the thread revolves around how people integrate LLMs (Claude Code, Copilot, GPT‑El, etc.) with Emacs, using tools like agent‑shell, ghostel, vterm, and Magit for review and iteration.

  • “What are people’s workflows for using eMacs with generative coding? I’m trying to get a workflow where I can generate code and approve it like a PR…” – edgyquant
  • “The most popular ways for agent stuff seems to be agent‑shell, or just opening a terminal in emacs and using claude code.” – internet_points
  • “Can't say enough good things about agent‑shell.el! Xenodium has done amazing work there.” – wilkystyle
  • “I’ve been using gptel, I’ll have it generate org babel blocks I can tangle (write to files) … and then review with magit.” – banjomonster
  • “I use Claude Code in my eMacs (through ghostel, which is unbelievably great!) to generate code :-) I then use Magit to review it.” – jwr
  • “I needed to be using page up and page down keys to ‘scroll’ through the claude history …” – scoops_ (practical tip)

3. Org‑mode vs. Markdown as the primary note‑taking format

Many participants debate whether Markdown can replace Org‑mode for personal knowledge work, discussing the structural limits of Markdown, the desire for Org‑like features (agenda, tags, todo handling) in Markdown files, and possible hybrid approaches.

  • “One of the biggest reason I've stopped using Emacs… org‑mode files weren't fully native Markdown files, which caused annoying friction when collaborating with others.” – taude
  • “I would love to have some of the org/agenda operations/views on a regular markdown file… Especially so I could just copy it raw out, and paste into other markdown‑centric tools…” – taude
  • “Org mode is a coherent whole, and has capabilities far beyond what Markdown can accomplish … Markdown's history is littered with folks trying to augment it…” – rpdillon
  • “Asciidoc is a nice middle ground between the full suit of tools you get in Orgmode and bare Markdown.” – geokon
  • “Markdown didn't even exist when org-mode was first developed… once you start extending markdown to support all these things you start getting something that's not markdown.” – Jtsummers
  • “Org‑mode is a proper tree … Markdown is rather a flat sequence of blocks … there's no agreement of what Markdown is.” – iLemming

These three threads—tree‑sitter Markdown, AI‑assisted coding, and the Org‑vs‑Markdown debate—dominate the opinions expressed throughout the discussion.

🚀 Project Ideas

Emacs AI PR Assistant

Summary

  • Provides a workflow to generate code via LLMs, review it as a pull‑request‑like diff, and leave inline comments for iterative improvement, all inside Emacs.
  • Core value: seamless AI‑assisted coding that feels like a PR review loop, leveraging existing tools (agent‑shell, magit) without leaving the editor.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Emacs users who want AI‑generated code with review workflow (developers, Emacs power users)
Core Feature Command to send region/prompt to LLM (via agent‑shell), capture output, show diff against original, allow magit‑style staging and comment insertion, then apply or iterate
Tech Stack Emacs Lisp, agent‑shell (or generic LLP interface), magit, diff‑hl
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • edgyquant: “I’m trying to get a workflow where I can generate code and approve it like a PR (maybe leave comments for a next round of generation)”.
  • Enables discussion on HN about AI‑assisted dev workflows and could inspire similar plugins for other editors.

Markdown Org Compatibility Layer (MOCL)

Summary

  • Adds org‑mode features (agenda, todo, timestamps, tags, property drawers) to plain .md files using frontmatter or special syntax while staying 100% compatible with standard Markdown parsers.
  • Core value: write portable markdown notes that still give you org‑style task management, calendar views, and collaboration without locking into Emacs‑only format.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Emacs users who collaborate via Markdown (product managers, writers, cross‑tool teams) but miss org‑mode functionality
Core Feature Minor mode that parses YAML frontmatter (or HTML comment blocks) for TODO keywords, dates, tags, etc., provides agenda view, todo search, timestamp insertion, and export to standard markdown
Tech Stack Emacs Lisp, yaml parsing library (built‑in or external), optional tree‑sitter for markdown
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • taude: “I would love to have some of the org/agenda operations/views on a regular markdown file… Especially so I could just copy it raw out, and paste into other markdown‑centric tools, github md files, etc. for collaborating with others.”
  • Sparks discussion about markdown vs org and could become a de‑facto standard for portable task‑rich markdown.

Emacs LLM Session Manager (ELSM)

Summary

  • Provides a persistent, searchable buffer for LLM interactions (via ghostel, vterm, or agent‑shell) that solves scrollback/history loss when resuming sessions and lets users tag, bookmark, and resume past conversations.
  • Core value: uninterrupted LLM chat experience inside Emacs, with history that survives Emacs restarts and works across terminal backends.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Emacs users who rely on LLMs for coding or writing and use terminal‑based LLM frontends (ghostel, vterm, plain term) but find history fragile
Core Feature Minor mode that hooks into the terminal emulator output, buffers each turn into a searchable org‑like log, provides commands to resume a previous session, annotate turns, and export as markdown
Tech Stack Emacs Lisp, term/vterm/ghostel hooks, optional persp/bookmark+, plain‑text org log storage
Difficulty Low‑Medium
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • scoops_: “I have issues… not being able to scroll back to the past history… needed to be using page up and page down keys to 'scroll' through the claude history”.
  • Useful for anyone using LLMs in Emacs; could spark discussion about improving terminal‑LLM integration.

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