Ask HN: What Comes After Markdown?
13 comments
Markdown’s popularity seems to stem from its simplicity. Complicating the base standard may hurt more than help, as tools that only need the basics (what it was designed for) would be pressured into full support of a complex standard.
It’s one thing for an app to create scope creep for markdown that those users can leverage. It’s another thing for the standard to create the scope creep, which is then pushed onto all the apps that may use it.
At some point, markdown loses its human readability when too many features are added. So if it gets too complicated, someone will inevitably create a new more simple standard… or push something like “markdown classic”.
John Gruber, who created markdown, doesn’t even use it for all the stuff most others do today.
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/06/04/apple-notes-mar...
It’s one thing for an app to create scope creep for markdown that those users can leverage. It’s another thing for the standard to create the scope creep, which is then pushed onto all the apps that may use it.
At some point, markdown loses its human readability when too many features are added. So if it gets too complicated, someone will inevitably create a new more simple standard… or push something like “markdown classic”.
John Gruber, who created markdown, doesn’t even use it for all the stuff most others do today.
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/06/04/apple-notes-mar...
I chose markdown as main format for gethly.com but i needed to extend it with various features/widgets. This is where I found its limitations because i essentially ended up doing the same pattern with ::: block pattern, which you can see on the help page here https://gethly.com/page/markdown
Additionally, I have added attributes with {} for images. Overall, my impression was that BB Code might be better for extensibility of the format, despite it being essentially just a different format for raw html. MD is not perfect by any means and is essentially limited by the amount of available human-friendly characters/patterns that you can type. But it is still convenient and easy for most people. Hence, the simplicity implies there is no replacement as it is already simple enough.
Additionally, I have added attributes with {} for images. Overall, my impression was that BB Code might be better for extensibility of the format, despite it being essentially just a different format for raw html. MD is not perfect by any means and is essentially limited by the amount of available human-friendly characters/patterns that you can type. But it is still convenient and easy for most people. Hence, the simplicity implies there is no replacement as it is already simple enough.
Markdown needs to stay human readable and "simple." Yes, I like some of the bolt on capabilities but I also want a document format that can be read using the simplest interfaces like text editors and os utilities like cat. That's THE reason it is our standard for documentation. I can make it pretty with a nice renderer but also read it, version it, consume it in a ton of tools (like AI Agents) using simple tools.
I'm quite happy with Markdown. It powers the website I live from. I like that it's human-readable, supported by so many editors, and generally easy to work with.
I have made a few extensions to make my life easier:
- Constants like {{ current_year}} to set things in one place and repeat them in multiple places
- Custom elements like {% tableOfContents %}. I just use Jinja inside markdown.
That has served me well for 5 years or so.
I have made a few extensions to make my life easier:
- Constants like {{ current_year}} to set things in one place and repeat them in multiple places
- Custom elements like {% tableOfContents %}. I just use Jinja inside markdown.
That has served me well for 5 years or so.
It will expand like JavaScript from its origins. It is now in its early period, like JS was before its standardization. It will become some sort of natural language source file format with fuzzy typing (vs HTML≈XML/JSON for structured document file format, JS for formal executable language source file).
If markdown allowed class and id identifiers on each content description it would be sufficient to replace HTML.
Agreed. IDs feel like the right starting point — names before verbs.
From there, I could imagine thin protocol layers emerging above — renderers, voice interfaces, AI agents each binding their own behavior to the same IDs. Markdown stays plain text. Complexity through composition, not bloat.
From there, I could imagine thin protocol layers emerging above — renderers, voice interfaces, AI agents each binding their own behavior to the same IDs. Markdown stays plain text. Complexity through composition, not bloat.
The "Unified" ecosystem represents an alternative evolutionary direction for markdown:
Markdown → remark → mdast
mdast → remark-rehype → hast
hast → rehype → HTML
It's powerful enough for me to integrate plugins into markdown.
Markdown → remark → mdast
mdast → remark-rehype → hast
hast → rehype → HTML
It's powerful enough for me to integrate plugins into markdown.
something made based on markdown - https://voiden.md
Pandoc and quarto have excellent extensions to markdown. I use both regularly.
Markdown + strict extension profiles is probably the next step.
What's interesting is how it keeps absorbing new capabilities without changing the format itself:
- Mermaid: diagrams from fenced code blocks - KaTeX/MathJax: math rendering from `$...$` syntax - Frontmatter: structured metadata via YAML blocks - MDX: React components embedded in markdown - Obsidian/Logseq: backlinks, canvas views, graph visualization — all from plain .md files
The pattern seems to be: the .md file stays human-readable plain text, but renderers get increasingly powerful. Same file, richer output.
This makes me wonder where this goes:
1. Does markdown keep evolving through renderer conventions until it becomes a de facto interactive document format? (The "HTML path" — HTML barely changed, but CSS/JS/browsers made it capable of anything.)
2. Does a new format emerge that can natively express interactivity, collapsible sections, embedded computations? Something between markdown and Jupyter notebooks?
3. Or does the answer involve a protocol/middleware layer — where .md files are the source, but some intermediate system (like a language server for documents) adds structure, validation, and interactivity on top?
I'm especially curious because of the AI angle. Plain .md files are the most AI-friendly knowledge format — any LLM can read, write, and search them with zero setup. A more complex format might gain expressiveness but lose this property.
What's your take? Is .md "good enough forever" with better renderers, or are we heading toward something new?