For Astro sites
Zeku is a native app that opens your Astro project directly, with live-preview markdown, frontmatter that knows your schema, and a publish button.
14-day free trial. Windows 10 and 11. v0.1.2614-day free trial. macOS 10.15 and later, in beta. v0.1.2614-day free trial. Linux on x86_64, in beta. v0.1.2614-day free trial. Windows 10 and 11, and macOS and Linux in beta. v0.1.26Also on macOS and Linux, in beta.Also on Windows, and on Linux (beta).Also on Windows, and on macOS (beta).
Reads the content.config.ts you already have.Edits files in place.Pushes to your repo.
What it does
Zeku is built around the Astro project you already have. It learns your collections from your config, so there is nothing to set up or keep in sync.
Your project
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.
Frontmatter
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.
---
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
---Writing
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
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.
It renders with your own components, layout, and CSS, so what you see is what ships.
Publish
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
Title and description length, keyword placement, heading order, alt text, reading level, and internal links that resolve. Run it on one page with Ctrl Shift A, or score a whole collection at once. You set the thresholds.
Starlight
Starlight projects list pages in the order your sidebar shows them, so the dashboard matches what your readers see.
And the details
Press Ctrl+/ to search your own components, fill in props, pick a hydration directive, and insert. The import is added for you.
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.
Cards or list, search, tag and draft filters, and bulk actions for publishing, tagging, or setting a frontmatter key on many entries at once.
Themes that mark their options in src/config.ts, like Axis and Astro Modular, get a real settings screen. Everything else opens as source.
A bundled English dictionary plus your own word list. It skips code and URLs, and nothing you write leaves your machine to be checked.
Autosave, crash recovery kept outside your repo, and a prompt instead of an overwrite when a file changes on disk under you.
Just the page. Hide the frontmatter, the panels, and the chrome until you want them back.
A command palette for everything, a quick switcher, full-text search, and every hotkey rebindable.
Sixteen color palettes in dark and light, your choice of editor font and line width, and CSS snippets for the rest.
Where it stands
Markdown and MDX in your repo, with no database, proprietary format, or account. Stop using Zeku tomorrow and nothing about your site changes.
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.
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
Zeku works from your schema, so a Starlight docs site opens the same way a personal blog does.
Astro Modular, a blog theme
Questions
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.
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.
Those add an admin page to your site for editing in a browser, and each needs its own description of your fields. Zeku is an app on your computer that reads the schema you already have and adds nothing to your site. If a team edits your site in a browser, one of them is the better fit: see every Astro CMS option, compared.
If your site uses Astro content collections, yes. Zeku is tested on the 200 most popular Astro themes and the official starters: see how each one did. 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.
No. Zeku never reads or writes .obsidian, so both can point at the same folder and neither rewrites the other. Vault CMS stays free.
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.
No, on purpose. Use whatever AI tools you like for building the site. Zeku is where you write.
Yes, both in beta. On a Mac, Zeku runs on macOS 10.15 Catalina and later, on Apple Silicon and Intel: run curl -fsSL https://zeku.dev/install.sh | bash in Terminal, or download the .dmg from the download page. On Linux, Zeku runs on x86_64 with glibc 2.35 or later, such as Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12, Fedora 36 or current Arch: run the same command in a terminal to install it for your account, or download the AppImage, .deb, or .rpm from the download page. The command and the AppImage update themselves; the .deb and .rpm update when you install a newer one. One license covers Zeku on any platform, on up to 3 computers.
No. You pay once, and every update after that is free. After the 14-day trial, Zeku keeps working and reminds you to buy.
Try it free. No account or setup, and nothing added to your repo.
Windows 10 and 11. Also on macOS and Linux, in beta.
macOS 10.15 and later, in beta. Also on Windows, and on Linux (beta).
Linux on x86_64, in beta. Also on Windows, and on macOS (beta).
Windows 10 and 11, and macOS and Linux in beta.