MarsDawn On the Mac App Store

Your agent's work comes back as a Markdown file.

You ask a coding agent to plan a migration, write a spec or chase a bug. It works on its own for a while, then hands you a file: plan.md, SPEC.md, a progress report, a research summary. As far as you can check the work, that file is the work.

Whether the agent got it right, you find out by reading what it hands back. MarsDawn is a Mac app for that read.

What people who build agents say

Quoted as written; our reading follows.

Our inference, not theirs: if an agent lays out its plan and stops at checkpoints, somebody reads that plan at the checkpoint, and usually that's you. If an agent can think it's finished when it isn't, its “done” report needs a reader too. None of these authors mention MarsDawn or endorse it or any other Markdown tool.

Why it's a harder read than it looks

The file is long, and the part that matters is rarely near the top. It has Mermaid diagrams and formulas that are hard to follow as source. The agent may still be rewriting it while you're halfway down. It's often one of several files, sometimes across branches or worktrees. And when you find a problem, “the cache part looks off” leaves the agent guessing; “docs/plan.md:42 drops the old table before the backfill finishes” doesn't.

Where MarsDawn helps

Two more for the loop: an agent can run marsdawn open plan.md:42 to open the file in MarsDawn at line 42, the line it wants you to see first, and a reviewed file exports to PDF from the app or with the free marsdawn export command.

MarsDawn has no AI model inside. It won't summarize the plan, grade it or tell you what's wrong. You do the reading; it keeps a long, changing file readable and lets you point at the exact line.

Review an agent's plan in five minutes

This works in any editor.

  1. Read only the headings. Does the outline match what you asked for? A missing section usually means missing work.
  2. Find every place that says something is done, passing or verified, and check one yourself: open the file, run the test, count the rows.
  3. Look for steps that can't be undone: deleting data, migrations, force-pushes, anything that sends, pays or publishes. Those wait for your explicit yes.
  4. Read the diagrams rendered, and check each arrow against the text.
  5. List the files and systems the plan touches. Ask about anything you didn't request before it runs.
  6. Write feedback as place, problem, fix: “plan.md:88: the backfill runs after the drop. Swap steps 4 and 5.” One problem per line.

Short on time? Do step 2. That's where an agent that thinks it's finished gets caught. The long version, with a worked example: Reviewing an agent plan in five minutes.

Try it

MarsDawn is on the Mac App Store. There's also the free marsdawn command-line tool:

brew install redtear1115/tap/marsdawn

It exports Markdown to PDF without the app, and marsdawn open lets your agent open files in MarsDawn for you.

Command Line · marsdawn for agents · Know before you buy: What MarsDawn doesn't do

Next

Sources