Markdown artifacts are editable in place. Open one and you are in the editor.
The editor
The toolbar covers what you would expect from a document editor: block styles, headings, font size, bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, inline code, text color and highlight, alignment, numbered and bulleted lists, checklists, links, tables, emoji, and line spacing. Undo and redo sit on the left, and a Save button on the right.
Under the hood the document is still markdown in a git repository. The rich formatting you apply is stored as markdown, which is what lets your agents read and edit the very same file.
How saving works
Save your work by hand. The editor shows an All changes saved indicator, but auto-save is not live yet — that label is not yet telling you the truth. Select Save after every change, or you will lose it. Auto-save is coming; until it lands, treat Save as a required step.
Once you select Save, the change becomes an entry in the artifact's history with your name on it, marked Manual Edit, and the version everyone else opens is the one you just saved.
Get in the habit of saving before you navigate away, close the tab, or hand the artifact to an AI — an unsaved change is not there for anyone else, and an agent reading the artifact a second later sees the last saved version, not what is on your screen.
Steps
::: lanes
In the app
- Open the markdown artifact.
- Write, using the toolbar or markdown habits: headings, lists, quotes, code, links.
- Select Save. Then check the history panel to confirm your change landed as the top entry.
Ask your AI assistant
Rewrite the intro of this artifact to be half as long, and keep everything else.
Add a risks section at the end of this doc.
:::
One thing to know if agents edit the same file
The editor rewrites the whole markdown file when it saves. For normal prose that is invisible. It matters if the raw file carries machine-oriented structure:
- YAML frontmatter (
---blocks at the top) is treated as text, shown in the document, and can be reformatted by a save. - Raw HTML and HTML comments in the source can be rewritten or escaped.
If your workflow keeps metadata in artifacts that both people and agents edit, keep anything load-bearing in the visible body, not in frontmatter or comments.
Working alongside people and AI
Editing is not solitary. Teammates open the same artifact and edit it too, and their changes land in the same history under their names. That makes a markdown artifact a good place for a draft you want feedback on. See Work on an artifact with your team.
You and an AI assistant can also both edit the same artifact. Each change is a separate history entry, attributed to whoever made it.
If an agent changes an artifact while you have it open, reload to pick up the current version before you keep editing, so your change lands on top of theirs rather than around them.
Limits
- Formatting beyond what markdown expresses will not survive a save.
- App artifacts are not edited here. Their source changes through your AI, or through Edit with AI.
FAQ
Did my edit save? Only if you selected Save. Confirm it by looking for your change as the top entry in the History panel — that is the reliable signal, not the indicator.
Can I edit an app artifact in the app? Not directly. Ask your AI to change it, or use Edit with AI.
What happens if two people type at once? Both changes land in history. Reload to see the merged current version.
Can I get back what I had before an edit? Yes. Select the earlier version in the History panel and Restore it. See Version history.