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Markdown syntax

Markdown is a lightweight markup language for formatting text. It is simple, easy to learn, and widely used for documents, blogs, and forums.

Basic Syntax

Headings

Emphasis

Rendered output: italic, bold, bold italic, strikethrough

list

Unordered lists

Ordered lists

Images

Blockquotes

Code

Inline code

Code blocks

Horizontal rules


Tables

Task lists

  • FinishedTask
  • Unfinished task

Footnotes

Github Flavored Markdown (GFM)

GitHub extends Markdown with several extra features.

Syntax highlighting

Emoji

:smile: :heart: :+1: :rocket: Emoji list

@mentions and issue references

GitHub automatically converts URLs into links:

Diff code blocks

Collapsible content

Alert boxes (newer GitHub feature)

Mathematical formulas

Use LaTeX syntax:

Mermaid diagrams

Advanced tips

HTML embedding

Markdown also supports raw HTML directly:

Escaping characters

Use backslashes to escape special characters:

Badges

Table of contents

Common tools

  • Editors: Typora, VS Code, Obsidian
  • Online editors: StackEdit, Dillinger
  • Formatting: Prettier, markdownlint
  • Conversion: Pandoc (Markdown to PDF/Word/HTML)

Best Practices

  1. Keep it simple: Markdown works best when it stays lightweight.
  2. Use headings well: keep the hierarchy clear.
  3. Use code highlighting: specify languages for better readability.
  4. Optimize images: keep image sizes under control.
  5. Preview often: check the rendered result after writing.
  6. Version control: Markdown works very well with Git.
  7. Check links: make sure all links work.
  8. Consider HTML for rich Agent output: When AI agents generate long documents with tables, diagrams, and interactive elements, HTML may be more expressive than Markdown (see below).

HTML vs Markdown for Agent Output

In the AI Agent era, the question of output format matters more than before. When agents write and modify documents, Markdown’s core advantage — “easy to manually edit” — disappears. Should you switch to HTML?

When Markdown is still the right choice

  • Short documents (under ~100 lines) — Markdown remains the simplest format
  • Config files, READMEs, changelogs — Git-friendly, easy to diff
  • Knowledge base pages (like this site) — Mintlify/Jekyll render Markdown beautifully
  • Team wikis — Where version control and collaborative editing are important

When HTML has advantages

Five practical use cases for HTML

  1. Planning & exploration — Generate an “HTML file network”: 6 directions side-by-side, then mockups, then an implementation plan
  2. Code review — Render diff, inline annotations, and flow charts in one page
  3. Design prototyping — HTML as design intermediate language, then translate to React/Swift
  4. Reports & learning — Cross-source synthesis with interactive explanations or slides
  5. Disposable editors — A throwaway UI for one task (reorder 30 tickets, toggle feature flags, adjust system prompt) with an “Export as JSON/prompt” button

Tradeoffs

  • Generation time — HTML takes 2–4× longer to generate than Markdown
  • Token cost — Higher, but less relevant with 1M+ context windows
  • Version controlHTML diff is noisy and hard to review — this is Markdown’s biggest remaining advantage
  • Style consistency — Requires a “design system HTML file” as reference to constrain aesthetics
For knowledge bases and version-controlled docs, Markdown is still the default. Use HTML only when the output is a one-off report, a review artifact, or an interactive prototype — things that won’t need Git diff review.
Based on Thariq’s analysis: HTML replacing Markdown in the Agent era — 6 advantages, 5 use cases, and tradeoffs. Original article at x.com/i/article/2052796100608974848.

References

Last modified on May 9, 2026