cheetah — fastest on the savanna

The cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) — 0 to 60 in three seconds.
Not a fighter. A hunter. Built for speed, efficiency, and knowing exactly when to strike.
Your documentation tool should be the same.

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cheetah eats Docusaurus for breakfast. Wiki.js is still resolving dependencies. GitBook got declawed somewhere around the first bend.

Not by fighting. By being faster, leaner, and built for the terrain you actually run on. The internet loves cats — and this one does the work.

cheetah is a lightweight, filesystem-native Markdown documentation editor and static site generator. It runs on your laptop, edits files on your disk, builds to HTML you can FTP to a potato — and it does it without a single line of React, Vue, Angular, Docker, or database. Five dependencies. Zero frameworks. One purpose: get out of your way.

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Why cheetah outpaces everything else

vs Docusaurus

• Docusaurus needs Node 18+, a React build pipeline, npm packages, and a team of priests to exorcise the dependency tree when something breaks
• cheetah needs npm install (5 deps) and npm run edit. That's it.
• Docusaurus converts your entire workflow into a proprietary React black box. Good luck diffing those JSX templates
• cheetah keeps every .md file pristine. Your git history stays readable. AI agents can edit files directly
• Docusaurus forces a specific folder convention. cheetah doesn't care — your structure, your rules

vs Wiki.js

• Wiki.js requires a PostgreSQL/MySQL/SQLite database. You're running a wiki platform just to edit text files
• cheetah has zero database. The filesystem is the database
• Wiki.js is a full web application that needs to be deployed, secured, backed up, and maintained
• cheetah is a folder with a build script. Deploy to any dumb FTP server, GitHub Pages, nginx, or Apache
• Wiki.js has a proprietary editor that stores content in a database. Try diffing that in git
• cheetah edits .md files on disk. git diff works perfectly. AI edits work perfectly

vs GitBook / ReadTheDocs

• GitBook is SaaS. Your docs live on someone else's server. You pay monthly to edit text
• cheetah lives on your machine. Free. Offline. Yours
• ReadTheDocs requires Sphinx/RST. RST is a dead language walking
• cheetah uses Markdown. Everyone knows Markdown. Every AI knows Markdown

vs VuePress / Nextra / etc

• Every single one of these requires a JS framework build pipeline. Hours of config. Breaking changes with every major version
• cheetah is vanilla HTML + CSS + JS on the frontend. Node.js only for local tooling. No framework lock-in. Zero build steps for the editor

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What you get

Feature	[cheetah]	Docusaurus	Wiki.js
Files are the source of truth	Yes	No (rendered output)	No (database)
AI-editable files	Yes	No	No
Git-friendly diffs	Yes	Mostly	No
Zero database	Yes	Yes	No
Live preview editor	Yes	Yes	Yes
Wiki links [[like this]]	Yes	Plugin	Yes
Markdown callout blocks (pure markdown)	Yes	Plugin	Plugin
Click-to-copy code	Yes	Yes	Yes
TOC with anchors	Yes	Yes	Yes
Image/video insertion	Yes	Yes	Yes
File ordering (frontmatter)	Yes	Filename only	Sort UI
Offline	Yes	Yes	No
FTP / GitHub Pages deploy	Yes	Yes	No
npm dependencies	5	1000+	500+
Tax on a 2015 laptop	None	Yes	Yes

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Quick start

# 1. Clone the engine
git clone https://github.com/petervanderwalt/cheetah.git
cd cheetah
npm install

# 2. Clone (or fork) a documentation repo, for example:
git clone https://github.com/petervanderwalt/grblhal_docs.git

# 3. Start the editor
npm run edit
# Opens http://localhost:3000 — on first run, point it to the docs repo you cloned

On first run, the editor asks for your project path. Point it to a folder with this structure:

my-project/
├── content/
│   ├── images/           # logo.svg, controller photos, etc.
│   ├── videos/
│   ├── misc/
│   └── markdown/         # Your .md files in numbered folders
└── docs/                 # Will be created by Deploy

Then:

• Edit markdown files in the editor
• Click Deploy → enter base path (e.g. /repo-name for GitHub Pages, or leave empty for root-level FTP)
• Built site goes to docs/ in your project
• Push your project repo and enable GitHub Pages → Deploy from branch: main, folder: /docs

# Build static site:
# Click "Deploy" in the editor — prompts for base path (e.g. /repo-name, subdirectory on FTP/Web Server etc)
# Output goes to docs/ in your project — ready for GitHub Pages ./docs or FTP

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The philosophy

Markdown files on disk are the only source of truth.

Everything operates directly on .md files. The editor reads and writes files. The static site generator reads files and outputs HTML. There is no database, no CMS, no hidden state. Your documentation is a folder with text files — the way it should be.

This means:

• AI agents can edit files directly without knowing anything about cheetah
• git diff shows exactly what changed
• No vendor lock-in — your docs are plain Markdown, portable anywhere
• Offline-first — works without internet

The editor gives you:

• A file tree (click to open, +Page/+Folder to create)
• A Markdown source pane with syntax highlighting (overlay technique)
• A live rendered preview pane that updates as you type
• Full formatting toolbar — Bold, Italic, Heading, Link, Inline Code, Fenced Code, Blockquote, Bullet List, Numbered List, Horizontal Rule, Table, Admonitions (Note/Tip/Warning/Danger/Info), Image upload, Video embed
• Drag-and-drop images (auto-upload to content/images/)
• Create new pages and sections with ordering (frontmatter order: field)
• Wiki links [[Page Name]] resolved by filename and path
• Autosave, keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+S, Tab to indent)
• File watching — external edits auto-refresh

The build gives you:

• Static HTML pages with navigation
• Table of contents with heading anchors
• Search index
• Click-to-copy on code blocks
• Admonition/callout styling
• CSS that works on any hosting

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Project structure

Engine (this repo — editor & build tools):

cheetah/
├── assets/                 # Editor frontend (vanilla HTML/CSS/JS)
│   ├── index.html
│   ├── css/
│   ├── js/
│   │   ├── app.js          # Main orchestrator
│   │   ├── editor.js       # Textarea + syntax highlighting
│   │   ├── filetree.js     # File tree with right-click menus
│   │   ├── markdown-parser.js  # Marked + wiki links
│   │   ├── preview.js      # Live preview
├── tools/
│   ├── edit-server.js      # Local Express server (port 3000)
│   ├── build.js            # Static site generator
│   ├── convert-admonitions.js  # One-time Docusaurus converter
│   └── fix-controller-images.js
├── content/                # Empty (placeholders — point editor to your project)
│   └── markdown/
├── package.json
└── .cheetah-path           # Created on first run (stores your project path)

Your project (separate repo or folder):

my-project/
├── content/                # Raw source files
│   ├── images/             # Images (logo.svg lives here)
│   ├── videos/             # Video files
│   ├── misc/               # PDFs, zips, etc.
│   └── markdown/           # Markdown files
│       ├── 01-Getting-Started/
│       ├── 02-Core-Concepts/
│       └── ...
├── docs/                   # Built output (GitHub Pages ./docs)
│   ├── index.html
│   ├── 01-Getting-Started/
│   ├── assets/css/site.css
│   └── images/
└── .gitignore

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Commands

Command	What it does
npm run edit	Start the local editor at localhost:3000
Editor Deploy button	Build static site with optional base path prefix

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## The name

cheetah — because the internet runs on cat pictures, and your documentation should move like one.

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Built with

• marked — Markdown parser (the only real dependency)
• Express — Local dev server
• chokidar — File watching
• gray-matter — Frontmatter parsing
• highlight.js — Code syntax highlighting
• Vanilla JS, CSS, HTML — no frameworks

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License

MIT