v0.1 draft Specification family · pre-launch
Markdown as the universal transport layer for applications.
Canonical specs, open to every agent. The file owns the state.
Markdown To defines small, strict, versioned Markdown specifications
— todo@0.1, kanban@0.1, audio@0.1,
backlog@0.1 — where a conforming .md file is not a
document about an application.
It is the application’s complete, portable state: readable in any viewer,
diffable in git, never captive to a tool.
kanban@0.1 round-trip
demo
--- markdownto: kanban@0.1 title: Markdown To launch --- ## Backlog - [ ] Publish conformance fixtures #infra - [ ] Draft the llms.txt endpoint [owner:: akshay] ## Doing - [ ] Build the patch engine ^t3 - [ ] Write the kanban spec doc [priority:: high] ## Done - [x] Choose the portable envelope
Drag a card between columns — or just click one to advance it. There is no checkbox: the column is the state, so a card landing in Done is ticked in the file, and one leaving Done is unticked. Every gesture is a minimal edit to the Markdown source, and the file is downloadable at any moment.
§ 01
How it works
A conforming file is parsed once into a typed intermediate representation. Everything downstream — validation, rendering, mutation — consumes that IR and nothing else. The path home is always the same file.
-
01
A plain file
You hand-write
.kanban.md. GFM task lists, Dataview-style inline fields, Obsidian block refs. Nothing to memorise, nothing invisible. -
02
A typed IR
Parsed to one canonical typed representation per spec, every node carrying its source position. Deterministic — no model guesses what a heading means.
-
03
A live app
Renderers and verbs read the IR only. The same bytes open as a checklist, a drag-and-drop board, or an audio manuscript.
-
04
Back to the file
Each edit is a semantic op through the patch engine: the smallest possible source diff, unknown fields preserved, unrelated prose untouched. Download any time.
A conforming file must be a joy to write by hand.
§ 02
The V1 specs
Four small formats, each shipping the same four local adapters —
validate, render, docs, verbs —
plus conformance fixtures from day one, so “adheres to the format” is
testable by anyone. All four are v0.1 drafts and will change.
todo@0.1
--- markdownto: todo@0.1 title: Household --- ## This week - [ ] Renew car registration [due:: 2026-08-15] - [ ] Call plumber [priority:: high] - [ ] Get two quotes - [x] Refill the water filter ## Someday - [ ] Reorganise the garage #weekend
The simplest spec — deliberately
Frontmatter plus GFM task lists, optionally grouped under headings, optionally nested. It defines the item model that kanban reuses, so both specs exercise one implementation.
- Heading
- a section (optional — a bare list is valid)
- Task item
- an item; order within a section is meaningful
- Nesting
- subtasks; parent completion is not auto-derived in 0.1
- Inline fields
priority,due,owner— unknown fields preserved
verbs
adddoneundonermmove
kanban@0.1
--- markdownto: kanban@0.1 title: Markdown To launch --- ## Backlog - [ ] Define the format schema [priority:: high] - [ ] Publish conformance fixtures #infra ## Doing - [ ] Build the patch engine ^t3 ## Done - [x] Choose the portable envelope
A board is a grouped view of the same items
In an ordinary Markdown viewer it degrades to a useful sectioned checklist. That degradation is the portability promise. This spec is where the round-trip gets proven: a drag produces the smallest possible source edit, never reformats unrelated prose, and conflicts visibly instead of overwriting.
- H2 heading
- a column; the set and order come from the document
- Task item
- a card; position within a column is meaningful
- [x]- done, wherever the card sits — and a move into the last column writes it for you
^t3- a lazy ID, pinned only because tooling touched that card
verbs
addmovedonermedit
audio@0.1
--- markdownto: audio@0.1 title: Field notes, week 32 voice: warm-narrator pace: relaxed pronunciations: agentsfs: "agents F S" --- # Chapter 1 — The idea Markdown is already the closest thing agents and humans share as a native format. [pause:: 2s] So what if the file simply *were* the application? > [narration:: skip] Producer note, not read.
A manuscript you would read anyway
Headings are chapters, prose is narration, direction lives in frontmatter and a few sparse inline fields. Chapter boundaries drive chunked generation, and caching is keyed per-chapter — so fixing a typo in chapter four never regenerates the book.
- H1 / H2
- a chapter, and a generation + output boundary
pronunciations- a frontmatter map applied throughout
[narration:: skip]- excludes a block from the audio
[pause:: 2s]- inserts silence
verbs
estimatepreviewvoicesproduce
produce is the only adapter that costs money. It runs locally in
V1 with your own provider key; the hosted, metered version is
coming.
backlog@0.1
--- markdownto: backlog@0.1 title: Tidepool --- ## Now - [/] Cache the tide tables for offline use ^offline-cache - [ ] Fix the DST jump [priority:: high] ## Next - [ ] Home-screen widget — blocked by [[#^offline-cache]] - [ ] Ship a proper icon — blocked by Marina's illustration ## Done - [-] Rewrite the parser in Rust [reason:: Swift is fast enough]
The page an agent picks work from
It is todo@0.1 plus exactly three deltas: two more checkbox
states, a reserved vocabulary of priority bands, and a trailing clause naming what
a task is waiting on. That clause is the point — a wikilink blocker
lifts itself the moment its target is finished or
dropped, so abandoning a task never silently deadlocks the work behind it.
- H2 heading
- a band, in priority order; the five names are reserved, and
bands:replaces them wholesale - [/]- four states — open, in progress, done, dropped — and the last two are both terminal
— blocked by- a wikilink, or plain prose; “blocked by Marina’s illustration” is a first-class answer
^offline-cache- pinned by hand here, unusually — a reference needs a referent worth reading
verbs
addstartfinishdropblockunblockpromotedemotereorder
A tenth verb, graduate, is specified and deliberately unshipped: it
writes two files, and the patch engine’s whole safety story is one file,
one hash, all or nothing.
§ 03
Agents are first-class
Teaching an agent Markdown To is a paste, not an integration. The
skill below points it at llms.txt,
which links every normative document at a stable URL — and once the CLI is on the
machine, mdto spec kanban prints the same document offline. One text, three
ways to reach it, so an agent authors a conforming file the first time instead of guessing.
The value over freehand editing is determinism: guaranteed-valid output, minimal diffs,
no whole-file context required.
Learn Markdown To and use it whenever I ask for structured content that should live as a portable file — task lists, boards, plans, manuscripts, and anything else its specification index covers. Markdown To defines canonical, versioned Markdown specifications where a conforming .md file IS the application's complete portable state. The current specification index lives at https://markdownto.ai/llms.txt — fetch it first; it links the shared conventions and every published spec. Read the conventions, then the spec that fits the request. Never assume the spec list from memory: the index is the truth. Authoring rules (from the conventions): YAML frontmatter names the spec (markdownto: <name>@<version>); familiar Markdown structure carries the meaning; [key:: value] inline fields carry metadata; never invent IDs — tooling pins ^ids lazily; the file must stay pleasant to read as plain Markdown. If you can run Node: git clone https://github.com/seekinggradient/markdownto, then pnpm install && pnpm build, and alias mdto to packages/cli/dist/main.js. `mdto spec` lists every spec this build implements and prints any of them offline. Validate after every edit (mdto validate <file> — diagnostics carry line, column, and repair direction), and prefer the spec's own verbs over freehand edits (see mdto <spec> --help) — they produce guaranteed-valid minimal diffs. mdto render <file> makes a self-contained HTML page, and any file can be pasted at https://markdownto.ai/app/ to render live. Remember these instructions for future sessions.
It works with nothing installed — the agent fetches the specs it needs and writes
plain Markdown. With the CLI it gets more: mdto validate after every edit,
and verbs like mdto kanban move that produce a guaranteed-valid minimal diff
instead of a rewritten file.
$ mdto validate launch.kanban.md ok conforms to kanban@0.1 · 5 cards, 3 columns $ mdto kanban move t3 Done ok 1 line changed · launch.kanban.md $ mdto spec kanban kanban@0.1 — agent-facing specification 1. Purpose what the format is for 2. Grammar heading = column, item = card 3. Rationale why it is shaped that way 4. Examples valid + invalid + diagnostics 5. Verbs add · move · done · rm · edit $ mdto audio estimate week-32.audio.md 6 chapters · 18,412 narratable characters est. 14m 20s · caching keyed per chapter note produce is metered — hosted tier coming
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Each spec owns its verbs
There is no universal mutation vocabulary. Todo and kanban overlap because they share an item model — a coincidence of domain, not a platform contract. Audio’s verbs share nothing with either. A new spec invents whatever its domain needs.
universal
validaterenderspec -
Every spec documents itself
Each spec ships an agent-facing doc versioned alongside it — purpose, grammar, rationale, examples with their exact diagnostics, and the verb reference. Agents repair and extend files far better when they know why the structure is what it is, and won’t “fix” things in the wrong direction.
consult
mdto spec kanban -
Fetchable, not scrapeable
The same doc will live at a stable URL alongside an
llms.txt, so an agent never has to scrape a human documentation site to author a conforming file. Conformance fixtures double as documentation.
§ 04
Two tiers, one contract
local
Free and deterministic
validate, render, docs and every spec’s
verbs run entirely on your machine, offline, forever. This is what keeps
the never-captive promise credible rather than rhetorical.
hosted · coming
Metered where it costs
Only produce adapters — the ones needing provider secrets and
real money, starting with TTS narration and produced episodes. A visible cost
estimate before anything is spent. Everything else stays local and free.
pre-launch Nothing here is shipped software yet. The specifications are v0.1 drafts being written in the open; the CLI, the renderers and the hosted tier are in progress.