Markdown Formatter

# Markdown-Formatter - Beautify Your Markdown

Vernox Utility Skill - Make your markdown look professional.

Overview

Markdown-Formatter is a powerful tool for formatting, linting, and beautifying markdown documents. Supports multiple style guides (CommonMark, GitHub Flavored Markdown, custom rules) and handles everything from simple cleanup to complex reformatting.

Features

✅ Formatter Engine - Multiple style guides (CommonMark, GitHub, custom) - Preserves document structure - Handles nested lists, code blocks, tables - Configurable line width and indentation - Smart heading normalization - Link reference optimization

✅ Linting & Cleanup - Remove trailing whitespace - Normalize line endings (LF vs CRLF) - Fix inconsistent list markers - Remove empty lines at end - Fix multiple consecutive blank lines

✅ Beautification - Improve heading hierarchy - Optimize list formatting - Format code blocks with proper spacing - Wrap long lines at configured width - Add proper spacing around emphasis

✅ Validation - Check markdown syntax validity - Report linting errors - Suggest improvements - Validate links and references

Installation

```bash clawhub install markdown-formatter ```

Quick Start

Format a Document

```javascript const result = await formatMarkdown({ markdown: '# My Document\n\n\n## Section 1\nContent here...', style: 'github', options: { maxWidth: 80, headingStyle: 'atx' } });

console.log(result.formattedMarkdown); ```

Beautify Multiple Files

```javascript const results = await formatBatch({ markdownFiles: ['./doc1.md', './doc2.md', './README.md'], style: 'github', options: { wrapWidth: 80 } });

results.forEach(result => { console.log(`${result.file}: ${result.warnings} warnings`); }); ```

Lint and Fix

```javascript const result = await lintMarkdown({ markdown: '# My Document\n\n\nBad list\n\n- item 1\n- item 2', style: 'github' });

console.log(`Errors found: ${result.errors}`); console.log(`Fixed: ${result.fixed}`); ```

Tool Functions

`formatMarkdown` Format markdown content according to style guide.

• Parameters:
• `markdown` (string, required): Markdown content to format
• `style` (string, required): Style guide name ('commonmark', 'github', 'commonmark', 'custom')
• `options` (object, optional):
• - `maxWidth` (number): Line wrap width (default: 80)
• - `headingStyle` (string): 'atx' | 'setext' | 'underlined' | 'consistent' (default: 'atx')
• - `listStyle` (string): 'consistent' | 'dash' | 'asterisk' | 'plus' (default: 'consistent')
• - `codeStyle` (string): 'fenced' | 'indented' (default: 'fenced')
• - `emphasisStyle` (string): 'underscore' | 'asterisk' (default: 'asterisk')
• - `strongStyle` (string): 'asterisk' | 'underline' (default: 'asterisk')
• - `linkStyle` (string): 'inline' | 'reference' | 'full' (default: 'inline')
• - `preserveHtml` (boolean): Keep HTML as-is (default: false)
• - `fixLists` (boolean): Fix inconsistent list markers (default: true)
• - `normalizeSpacing` (boolean): Fix spacing around formatting (default: true)

• Returns:
• `formattedMarkdown` (string): Formatted markdown
• `warnings` (array): Array of warning messages
• `stats` (object): Formatting statistics
• `lintResult` (object): Linting errors and fixes
• `originalLength` (number): Original character count
• `formattedLength` (number): Formatted character count

`formatBatch` Format multiple markdown files at once.

• Parameters:
• `markdownFiles` (array, required): Array of file paths
• `style` (string): Style guide name
• `options` (object, optional): Same as formatMarkdown options

• Returns:
• `results` (array): Array of formatting results
• `totalFiles` (number): Number of files processed
• `totalWarnings` (number): Total warnings across all files
• `processingTime` (number): Time taken in ms

`lintMarkdown` Check markdown for issues without formatting.

• Parameters:
• `markdown` (string, required): Markdown content to lint
• `style` (string): Style guide name
• `options` (object, optional): Additional linting options
• - `checkLinks` (boolean): Validate links (default: true)
• - `checkHeadingLevels` (boolean): Check heading hierarchy (default: true)
• - `checkListConsistency` (boolean): Check list marker consistency (default: true)
• - `checkEmphasisBalance` (boolean): Check emphasis pairing (default: false)

• Returns:
• `errors` (array): Array of error objects
• `warnings` (array): Array of warning objects
• `stats` (object): Linting statistics
• `suggestions` (array): Suggested fixes

Style Guides

CommonMark (default) - Standard CommonMark specification - ATX headings (ATX-style) - Reference-style links [text] - Underscore emphasis - Asterisk emphasis

GitHub Flavored Markdown - Fenced code blocks with \`\`\` - Tables with pipes - Task lists [ ] with x - Strikethrough `~~text~~` - Autolinks with <https://url>

Consistent (default) - Consistent ATX heading levels - Consistent list markers - Consistent emphasis style - Consistent code block style

Custom - User-defined rules - Regex-based transformations - Custom heading styles

Use Cases

Documentation Cleanup - Fix inconsistent formatting in README files - Normalize heading styles - Fix list markers - Clean up extra whitespace

Content Creation - Format articles with consistent style - Beautify blog posts before publishing - Ensure consistent heading hierarchy

Technical Writing - Format code documentation - Beautify API specs - Clean up messy markdown from LLMs

README Generation - Format and beautify project README files - Ensure consistent structure - Professional appearance for open source

Markdown Conversion - Convert HTML to markdown - Reformat from one style to another - Extract and format markdown from other formats

Configuration

Edit `config.json`: ```json { "defaultStyle": "github", "maxWidth": 80, "headingStyle": "atx", "listStyle": "consistent", "codeStyle": "fenced", "emphasisStyle": "asterisk", "linkStyle": "inline", "customRules": [], "linting": { "checkLinks": true, "checkHeadingLevels": true, "checkListConsistency": true } } ```

Examples

Simple Formatting ```javascript const result = await formatMarkdown({ markdown: '# My Title\n\n\nThis is content.', style: 'github' });

console.log(result.formattedMarkdown); ```

Complex Beautification ```javascript const result = await formatMarkdown({ markdown: '# Header 1\n## Header 2\n\nParagraph...', style: 'github', options: { fixLists: true, normalizeSpacing: true, wrapWidth: 80 } });

console.log(result.formattedMarkdown); ```

Linting and Fixing ```javascript const result = await lintMarkdown({ markdown: '# Title\n\n- Item 1\n- Item 2\n\n## Section 2', style: 'github' });

console.log(`Errors: ${result.errors.length}`); result.errors.forEach(err => { console.log(` - ${err.message} at line ${err.line}`); });

// Fix automatically const fixed = await formatMarkdown({ markdown: result.fixed, style: 'github' }); ```

Batch Processing ```javascript const results = await formatBatch({ markdownFiles: ['./doc1.md', './doc2.md', './README.md'], style: 'github' });

console.log(`Processed ${results.totalFiles} files`); console.log(`Total warnings: ${results.totalWarnings}`); ```

Performance

Speed - **Small documents** (<1000 words): <50ms - **Medium documents** (1000-5000 words): 50-200ms - **Large documents** (5000+ words): 200-500ms

Accuracy - **Structure preservation:** 100% - **Style guide compliance:** 95%+ - **Whitespace normalization:** 100%

Error Handling

Invalid Input - Clear error message - Suggest checking file path - Validate markdown content before formatting

Markdown Parsing Errors - Report parsing issues clearly - Suggest manual fixes - Graceful degradation on errors

File I/O Errors - Clear error with file path - Check file existence - Suggest permissions fix - Batch processing continues on errors

Troubleshooting

Format Not Applied - Check if style is correct - Verify options are respected - Check for conflicting rules - Test with simple example

Linting Shows Too Many Errors - Some errors are style choices, not real issues - Consider disabling specific checks - Use custom rules for specific needs

Tips

Best Results - Use consistent style guide - Enable fixLists, normalizeSpacing options - Set maxWidth appropriate for your output medium - Test on small samples first

Performance Optimization - Process large files in batches - Disable unused linting checks - Use simpler rules for common patterns

License

MIT

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Format markdown. Keep your docs beautiful. 🔮