| type | skill |
| lifecycle | stable |
| name | md-to-txt |
| description | Strip Markdown formatting and produce clean plain text via pandoc |
| tier | standard |
| applyTo | **/*md-to-txt*,**/*plain-text*,**/*.txt |
| muscle | .github/muscles/md-to-txt.cjs |
| inheritance | inheritable |
| currency | 2026-04-30T00:00:00.000Z |
| lastReviewed | 2026-04-30T00:00:00.000Z |
Markdown to Plain Text
Strip all Markdown formatting and produce clean plain text. Useful for clipboard export, email body fallback, accessibility, and as input to text analysis tools.
Quick Start
node .github/muscles/md-to-txt.cjs source.md output.txt
Options
| Flag | Default | Effect |
|---|
--wrap N | 80 | Line wrap width (0 = no wrap) |
--strip-frontmatter | off | Remove YAML frontmatter |
--strip-mermaid | off | Replace Mermaid blocks with [diagram] |
--strip-images | off | Replace image refs with alt text |
--no-replace-em-dashes | em-dashes ARE replaced for txt | Keep — literal |
--strip-decorative-rules | HRs preserved for txt | Strip decorative --- lines |
Format-Aware Defaults
Plain text gets:
- Em-dash →
, ON. AI-tell em-dashes look bad in monospace fonts.
- Decorative HR strip OFF. Pandoc renders
--- as visible plain-text dividers, which are usually intentional in txt output.
Override via flags above.
What gets stripped
- Bold, italic, strikethrough markers
- Inline code backticks
- Link URLs (alt text preserved)
- Heading
# markers
- Bullet/list markers (indentation preserved)
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