Video summary
The 2026 Coolest Tool Award celebrates innovation within the Wikimedia community by recognizing tools that make participation more intuitive and impactful for contributors worldwide. Last year's winners focused on moderation infrastructure, but this year's accolade goes to CodeMirror, a project developed by BHSD (Harry) in collaboration with others across the technical community. This award honors an evolution in editing technology that transforms complex wiki markup into a faster, clearer, and more manageable experience for users everywhere.
CodeMirror introduces a modern integrated development environment-like feel directly into Wikimedia projects through several key features designed to simplify the editing process. Syntax highlighting visually separates templates, links, references, and code structures, making dense text far easier to read at a glance. The tool further assists editors with real-time autocompletion for tags and internal links, automatic closing of brackets to prevent formatting errors, and immediate linting that surfaces issues before changes are published. Additional capabilities like code folding, bracket matching, and multi-cursor editing allow contributors to handle even the most technically demanding pages with confidence.
The flexibility of CodeMirror is a central strength, allowing users to independently enable or disable features such as search, linting, and syntax highlighting to tailor their experience to specific needs. This adaptability extends beyond standard Wikitext to support Lua, CSS, JavaScript, JSON, and other languages used across various Wikimedia editing environments. By integrating the CodeMirror 6 library and building upon previous contributions from developers like musicanimal, the project reflects a collaborative spirit where community feedback refines technical expertise into robust infrastructure that empowers free knowledge creation.
The demonstration highlights how these features function in practice, starting with enabling syntax highlighting directly from the editor toolbar to distinguish page elements instantly. As users type, the built-in linter catches duplicate attributes or other errors immediately, while autocompletion suggests tags and inserts matching closing brackets automatically to reduce repetitive typing. Navigation is also enhanced through keyboard shortcuts that allow editors to open links in new tabs without leaving their workspace, proving that CodeMirror has successfully upgraded the editing experience into a seamless workflow for creating free knowledge globally.
Read the full video transcript
Knowledge grows through contributions
and contributions are powered by people
and the tools that support them.
Across Wikimedia, developers and
volunteers are building technology that
simplifies complexity, removes barriers,
and helps more people turn curiosity
into contribution. Last year, the
winning projects were AbuseFilter
Analyzer, Database Report, and Paulina.
They helped communities navigate
moderation more effectively,
demonstrated the power of evolving
infrastructure, and expanded the
boundaries of what a Wikimedia tool
could be.
This year, we celebrate even more
innovation. Today, we recognize the
tools making participation more
intuitive, more accessible, and more
impactful for contributors around the
world. Welcome to the 2026 Coolest Tool
Award.
This year's Most Evolved Award goes to
CodeMirror, developed by BHSD or Harry,
alongside collaborators across the
Wikimedia technical community.
CodeMirror brings a modern IDE-like
editing experience to Wikimedia
projects, making complex wiki editing
faster, clearer, and easier to navigate.
As contributors edit, syntax
highlighting visually separates
templates, links, references, and code
structures, transforming dense markup
into something far more readable and
intuitive.
Autocompletion helps editors quickly
insert links, templates, and tags
without memorizing complex syntax, while
auto-closing brackets and tags help
prevent formatting mistakes before they
happen.
At the same time, real-time linting
surfaces errors and potential issues as
contributors type, helping editors catch
problems before publishing changes.
Features such as code folding, bracket
matching, and multi-cursor editing make
even larger, technically demanding pages
feel more manageable.
Supporting Wikitext, Lua, CSS,
JavaScript, JSON, and more, CodeMirror
creates a more seamless editing
experience across Wikimedia projects.
What makes CodeMirror especially
impactful is its flexibility. Features
such as syntax highlighting, auto
completion, linting, and search can be
enabled or disabled independently,
allowing contributors to tailor the
editing experience to their needs. That
experience is the result of years of
collaborative work, building on
contributions from musicanimal
and the integration of the CodeMirror 6
library. The project reflects the
collaborative spirit of Wikimedia
development, where improvements are
refined through community feedback and
shared technical expertise. Together,
they created more than an editor
upgrade. They built infrastructure that
helps people participate more
confidently in the creation of free
knowledge.
We'll start in the 2010 Wiki text
editor. CodeMirror can be enabled
directly from the Wiki editor toolbar.
Once activated, syntax highlighting
makes templates, links, references, and
other markup easier to read and
navigate. Different elements are
visually distinguished, helping
contributors understand page structure
at a glance.
From the same menu, contributors can
access CodeMirror settings, open the
full preferences dialog, or explore
keyboard shortcuts.
As editing begins, CodeMirror starts
assisting in real time. When it detects
a potential issue, the built-in linter
highlights it immediately. In this
example, CodeMirror identifies duplicate
attribute before the editor save,
allowing the contributor to correct the
issue before it reaches readers.
Next, as we begin typing a tag, auto
complete offers suggestions for tags,
internal links, and other commonly used
syntax. Once selected, the matching
closing tag is inserted automatically,
helping reduce repetitive typing and
formatting errors.
Code Mirror also makes navigation easier
by holding control or command on Mac OS.
Contributors can click links and
templates directly from the editor and
open them in a new tab. Now, let's
switch to template styles. Code Mirror
improvements extend beyond wikitext.
Support for other Wikimedia editing
environments has also been enhanced with
features such as code folding, auto
complete, syntax highlighting, and
linting providing a more efficient
experience across languages and
workflows. Whether editing wikitext,
CSS, or Lua, Code Mirror helps
contributors work more efficiently by
providing the right assistance at the
right moment, making complex editing
faster, clearer, and more intuitive.
Congratulations to BHSD, MusicAnimal,
and all the contributors behind Code
Mirror for winning the 2026 Coolest Tool
Award for Most Evolved.