What's the problem?
In the desktop app's file viewer, opening a code file gives an editable buffer with a save affordance — you can type a correction and save it. Opening a .md file gives a rendered preview with no way to edit. The capability is gated by file type.
That gate happens to fall along the line between code and prose, which makes it a bigger deal than it first looks. A large and growing share of Claude Code users are not developers — people writing specs, plans, notes and documentation, often with a plugin or workflow whose primary artifacts are markdown. For those users, every file they own is on the read-only side of the gate, while the files they never touch are editable.
The asymmetry also undercuts a common review pattern: Claude writes text to a file and links it, the user opens it to approve. For a .py that review can end in a one-word fix. For a .md the user has to come back to chat and ask Claude to make the edit — a round trip, and a token cost, for a typo.
What would you like?
Editing for .md in the file viewer, with the same save affordance code files have. A source/preview toggle would be the natural shape — keep the rendered view as the default, let the user switch to source, edit, and save.
Environment
Windows 11, Claude Code desktop app 2.1.219.
What's the problem?
In the desktop app's file viewer, opening a code file gives an editable buffer with a save affordance — you can type a correction and save it. Opening a
.mdfile gives a rendered preview with no way to edit. The capability is gated by file type.That gate happens to fall along the line between code and prose, which makes it a bigger deal than it first looks. A large and growing share of Claude Code users are not developers — people writing specs, plans, notes and documentation, often with a plugin or workflow whose primary artifacts are markdown. For those users, every file they own is on the read-only side of the gate, while the files they never touch are editable.
The asymmetry also undercuts a common review pattern: Claude writes text to a file and links it, the user opens it to approve. For a
.pythat review can end in a one-word fix. For a.mdthe user has to come back to chat and ask Claude to make the edit — a round trip, and a token cost, for a typo.What would you like?
Editing for
.mdin the file viewer, with the same save affordance code files have. A source/preview toggle would be the natural shape — keep the rendered view as the default, let the user switch to source, edit, and save.Environment
Windows 11, Claude Code desktop app 2.1.219.