For Astro sites

Write on your Astro site, not in a CMS.

Zeku opens your Astro project and lets you write in it: live-preview markdown, frontmatter that knows your schema, and a publish button, all in a native app.

14-day free trial. Windows 10 and 11. v0.1.1

Reads your real content.config.ts.Edits your real files.Pushes to your real repo.

What it does

Everything between the idea and the push.

Zeku is built around the Astro project you already have. It learns your collections from your config, so there is nothing to set up and nothing to keep in sync.

Your project

Opens your repo and reads its schema.

Point Zeku at an Astro project and it finds the content folder on its own. Every collection your content.config.ts declares shows up, nested ones included, with field types from the schemas astro sync writes.

Nothing is copied into a second config. It is read fresh every time you open the project, so it can never go stale.

  • Collections from your config, in the order you think in
  • A file tree with Content and Site views
  • Any folder of markdown opens too

Frontmatter

Frontmatter that knows your schema.

Zeku draws a form from your collection schema. Enum fields offer their allowed values, reference() fields look up entries in the target collection, dates get a picker, booleans get a checkbox, and required fields are marked.

Keys your schema does not know keep working, and dates are written back in the format you choose.

src/content/posts/field-notes.md
---
title: Field notes from a slow week
description: What I learned writing every
  morning for a month.
date: 2026-09-18
author: david
category: essays
tags:
  - writing
  - habits
draft: false
---
Frontmatter
title *
Field notes from a slow week
description
What I learned writing every morning for a month.
date
Sep 18, 2026
author
David V. Kimball authors
category
essays
tags
writinghabits
draft

Writing

Markdown that renders while you write.

Syntax fades until your cursor reaches it. Callouts, Starlight admonitions, tables, footnotes, math, mermaid diagrams, and Expressive Code blocks render in place.

YouTube, Bluesky, CodePen, and Gist embeds show up inline, and raw HTML renders where it sits. Flip to source any time.

Preview

See the real site, not a guess.

Zeku starts your project's own astro dev, with whichever of pnpm, npm, yarn, or bun it uses, and shows the page beside the editor.

Your components, your layout, your CSS. What you see is what ships.

Publish

Publish without a terminal.

See what changed, write a commit message, and push. Zeku pulls first so you never clobber work from another machine.

Your host builds the push the way it always has. Zeku never deploys anything itself.

SEO

An audit for every note, and every collection.

Title and description length, keyword placement, heading order, alt text, reading level, and internal links that resolve. Run it on one note with Ctrl Shift A, or score a whole collection at once. The thresholds are yours.

Starlight

Docs sites sort like their sidebar.

Starlight projects list pages in the order your sidebar shows them, so the dashboard matches what your readers see.

And the details

The small things, done properly.

  • MDX component builder

    Press Ctrl+/ to search your own components, fill in props, pick a hydration directive, and insert. The import is added for you.

  • Images land in the right place

    Drag, drop, or paste and the file is copied into your assets folder with a clean name and a relative link. Stock photo search is built in.

  • A dashboard per collection

    Cards or list, search, tag and draft filters, and bulk actions for publishing, tagging, or setting a frontmatter key on many entries at once.

  • Theme settings as a form

    Themes that mark their options in src/config.ts, like Axis and Astro Modular, get a real settings screen. Everything else opens as source.

  • Spellcheck that stays local

    A bundled English dictionary plus your own word list. It skips code and URLs, and nothing you write leaves your machine to be checked.

  • Hard to lose work

    Autosave, crash recovery kept outside your repo, and a prompt instead of an overwrite when a file changes on disk under you.

  • Zen mode

    Just the page. Hide the frontmatter, the panels, and the chrome until you want them back.

  • Keyboard first

    A command palette for everything, a quick switcher, full-text search, and every hotkey rebindable.

  • Make it yours

    Sixteen color palettes in dark and light, your choice of editor font and line width, and CSS snippets for the rest.

Where it stands

Plain files. Your repo. No AI.

No lock-in

Markdown and MDX in your repo. No database, no proprietary format, no account. Stop using Zeku tomorrow and nothing about your site changes.

Git is the source of truth

Zeku edits files on your disk and publishes through your own git. There is no server in the middle and nothing to sync but the repo.

Built for people writing prose

No AI writing features, on purpose. Use whatever tools you like to build the site. Zeku is the calm place to write the post.

Works with your theme

Blogs, docs, portfolios. If it has collections, it opens.

Zeku reads the schema, not the theme, so it works the same on a Starlight docs site as on a personal blog.

Astro Modular, a blog theme

Pricing

Pay once. Keep it.

Try it free for 14 days. A founding license is $19.99, paid once, with 12 months of updates and 30-day refunds.

$19.99

Founding license, one time

See pricing

Questions

Asked and answered.

Does Zeku change my files or add anything to my repo?

It edits the markdown and MDX you open, and nothing else unless you ask. Opening a project creates nothing. If you change a project setting, Zeku writes a small .zeku folder that is meant to be committed, so the setting follows you to every machine.

Do I need to write a config file for Zeku?

No. Zeku reads the content.config.ts you already have. Run astro sync (or astro dev once) and it picks up the richest field types; without that, it reads your config directly.

Does it work with my theme?

If your site uses Astro content collections, yes. Themes that mark their settings in src/config.ts, like Axis and Astro Modular, also get a real settings form, and Starlight docs sites sort the way their sidebar does.

Do I have to stop using Obsidian or Vault CMS?

No. Zeku never reads or writes .obsidian, so both can point at the same folder and neither rewrites the other. Vault CMS stays free.

How does publishing work?

Zeku uses your own git. It shows what changed, commits with your message, pulls, and pushes. Your host deploys the push the way it always does. Zeku never deploys anything itself.

Is there any AI in it?

No, on purpose. Use whatever AI tools you like for building the site. Zeku is where you write.

Is it on Mac or Linux?

Not yet. Zeku is Windows 10 and 11 only for now. Zeku is built on a cross-platform stack, but it has not been tested on macOS or Linux, and it will not ship there until it has.

Is it a subscription?

No. Zeku is a one-time purchase with 12 months of updates included, after a 14-day free trial. Renewing updates after that is optional, and the app keeps working either way.

Open your project. Start writing.

Free for 14 days. No account, no setup, nothing added to your repo.