Viewer-first
Uninterrupted thought from README to specifications
Utilize the file tree and tabs to seamlessly read through multiple Markdown documents.
Product Site for Developers
The Markdown workspace for developers who live in specifications.
A fast, documentation-focused experience optimized for reading.
KatanA is a native desktop app designed to help you read, navigate, and share technical documentation without the unnecessary complexity of general-purpose knowledge apps.
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Native Desktop
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Multi-language
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macOS / Windows / Linux
Product Experience
From README to release notes in one seamless flow
Accelerate your understanding with split preview, diagram support, and workspace navigation.
positioning
Start with what you need
Choose the page that matches your goal so you can quickly understand whether KatanA fits.
fit
Designed for Technical Documentation Workflows
KatanA doesn't aim to be a general knowledge base or a full IDE. It is a readable workspace dedicated to documentation-heavy development.
AI-Assisted
Fast preview before passing to AI
Verify source and preview side-by-side to smoothly check specifications and documents before including them in AI prompts.
Native
Comfortable reading even with diagrams and long texts
Native performance powered by Rust and egui maintains a responsive feel even for technical documents heavily using Mermaid, including ZenUML, and PlantUML.
positioning
Fast positioning in one glance
KatanA
Best for technical docs, mixed diagrams, and workspace review.
Viewer-first desktop flow for README, ADR, specs, and release notes.
Typora
Best for single-document writing and lightweight editing.
Strong editor feel, but less workspace-aware for doc sets.
Obsidian
Best for knowledge-base and plugin-heavy personal systems.
Excellent graph/wiki workflows; less focused on spec review work.
Who this is for
- Engineers reviewing ADRs and architecture specs daily.
- Teams reading Mermaid (including ZenUML) / PlantUML / Draw.io mixed documentation.
- AI-assisted development workflows that depend on clean spec reading.
Behind KatanA
A product built to bridge the gap between lightweight Markdown tools and documentation-heavy engineering work.
- In Spec-Driven Development, screen readability before editing is crucial.
- In the age of AI agents, specifications and ADRs are becoming even more important.
- General-purpose note apps and heavyweight editors are too much overhead when you only need to review documents.
Roadmap: The Evolving Workspace
KatanA is evolving from a stable viewer into an essential document authoring and verification tool for the AI era.
- Enhanced Markdown writing and optimized image asset management (v0.22.0)
- Auto-fix support for Linter powered by local LLM (v0.23.0)
- AI-driven document generation and multi-language translation overlay (v0.24.0 - v0.25.0)
- Refined desktop experience toward the v1.0.0 milestone