Add a configurable Markdown link serialization policy
What’s broken?
The Markdown exporter does not provide a public option to control how links are serialized.
When a URL-only link is created in BlockNote, blocksToMarkdownLossy may serialize it as a bare URL:
https://example.comThis is valid in GFM, but it loses the explicit distinction between ordinary text and a Markdown link. It also makes it difficult for applications to enforce a consistent Markdown export policy.
What did you expect to happen?
Applications should be able to choose whether links are serialized as:
https://example.comor explicitly as:
[https://example.com](https://example.com)For links with a separate label, the explicit format should remain:
[Documentation](https://example.com)The default behavior should remain unchanged for backward compatibility.
Steps to reproduce
- Create a BlockNote editor.
- Insert a link where the displayed text is the same as the URL.
- Export the document with
blocksToMarkdownLossy. - Observe that the result may contain a bare URL instead of explicit Markdown link syntax.
Example:
const markdown = editor.blocksToMarkdownLossy(editor.document);
console.log(markdown);Observed output:
https://example.comDesired opt-in output:
[https://example.com](https://example.com)BlockNote version
v0.54.0
Environment
React application, macOS
Proposed API
One possible API would be an export option:
editor.blocksToMarkdownLossy(editor.document, {
linkStyle: "explicit",
});Possible values:
type MarkdownLinkStyle = "auto" | "explicit";Where:
"auto"preserves the current behavior."explicit"always emits[label](url)for links.- Links with different labels continue to emit
[label](url).
The option could be exposed through the lower-level Markdown exporter API as well.
Additional context
We initially implemented an application-level HTML-to-Markdown serializer only to change this link behavior. However, that requires duplicating BlockNote’s complete Markdown serialization logic and creates compatibility and maintenance risks when BlockNote changes its exporter.
A public link serialization option or hook would allow applications to customize this behavior without forking the whole serializer.
Contribution
I’d be interested in contributing a fix for this issue.
Source: TypeCellOS/BlockNote