mercat: Inline Rendering of Mermaid Diagrams on GitHub

mercat is a browser extension for Chrome that allows users to render Mermaid diagrams inline in markdown documents hosted on GitHub. This handy tool solves the problem of GitHub Flavored Markdown not rendering Mermaid diagrams, allowing users to easily review and share their diagrams with beautiful rendered visuals.

One of the advantages of using Mermaid diagrams over image files is that any changes made to the diagrams can be easily reviewed in pull requests, just like any other diff. However, GitHub Flavored Markdown does not support rendering these diagrams, which can be frustrating.

mercat solves this dilemma by scanning markdown documents for Mermaid code blocks and replacing them with the actual diagrams. This allows users to continue enjoying the benefits of using diagrams-as-code while also being able to view and share their markdown documents with visually appealing rendered diagrams on GitHub.

With a name derived from a combination of “Mermaid” and “OctoCat” (the GitHub mascot), mercat brings convenience and functionality to users who rely on Mermaid diagrams for their documentation needs.