web-to-markdown

SkillWeb & browsing

Lets your agent turn a webpage URL into clean Markdown text, including pages that load content with JavaScript.

Available today. Use it from your connected AI after setup.

Connect ahel once, and every AI you use reads what you have installed.

Then ask your AI: use the web-to-markdown skill

About this capability

Use ONLY when the user explicitly says: 'use the skill web-to-markdown ...' (or 'use a skill web-to-markdown ...'). Converts webpage URLs to clean Markdown by calling the local web2md CLI (Puppeteer + Readability), suitable for JS-rendered pages.

What this skill tells your AI

The instructions your AI receives, as published by softaworks/agent-toolkit in skills/web-to-markdown/SKILL.md and read by ahel’s review.

Convert web pages to clean Markdown by driving a locally installed browser (via web2md).

Hard trigger gate (must enforce)

This skill MUST NOT be used unless the user explicitly wrote exactly a phrase like:

  • use the skill web-to-markdown ...
  • use a skill web-to-markdown ...

If the user did not explicitly request this skill by name, stop and ask them to re-issue the request including: use the skill web-to-markdown.

What this skill does

  • Handles JS-rendered pages (Puppeteer → user Chrome).
  • Works best with Chromium-family browsers (Chrome/Chromium/Brave/Edge) via puppeteer-core.
  • Extracts main content (Readability).
  • Converts to Markdown (Turndown) with cleaned links and optional YAML frontmatter.

Non-goals

  • Do not use Playwright or other browser automation stacks; the mechanism is web2md.

Inputs you should collect (ask only if missing)

  • url (or a list of URLs)
  • Output preference:
    • Print to stdout (--print), OR
    • Save to a file (--out ./file.md), OR
    • Save to a directory (--out ./some-dir/ to auto-name by page title)
  • Optional rendering controls for tricky pages:
    • --chrome-path <path> (if Chrome auto-detection fails)
    • --interactive (show Chrome and pause so the user can complete human checks/login, then press Enter)
    • --wait-until load|domcontentloaded|networkidle0|networkidle2
    • --wait-for '<css selector>'
    • --wait-ms <milliseconds>
    • --headful (debug)
    • --no-sandbox (sometimes required in containers/CI)
    • --user-data-dir <dir> (login/session; use a dedicated profile directory)

Workflow

  1. Confirm the user explicitly invoked the skill (use the skill web-to-markdown).
  2. Validate URL(s) start with http:// or https://.
  3. Ensure web2md is installed:
    • Run: command -v web2md
    • If missing, instruct the user to install it (assume the project exists at ~/workspace/softaworks/projects/web2md):
      • cd ~/workspace/softaworks/projects/web2md && npm install && npm run build && npm link
      • Or: cd ~/workspace/softaworks/projects/web2md && npm install && npm run build && npm install -g .
  4. Convert:
    • Single URL → file:
      • web2md '<url>' --out ./page.md
    • Single URL → auto-named file in directory:
      • mkdir -p ./out && web2md '<url>' --out ./out/
    • Human verification / login walls (interactive):
      • mkdir -p ./out && web2md '<url>' --interactive --user-data-dir ./tmp/web2md-profile --out ./out/
      • Then: complete the check in the browser window and press Enter in the terminal to continue.
    • Print to stdout:
      • web2md '<url>' --print
    • Multiple URLs (batch):
      • Create output dir (e.g. ./out/) then run one web2md command per URL using --out ./out/
  5. Validate output:
    • If writing files, verify they exist and are non-empty (e.g. ls -la <path> and wc -c <path>).
  6. Return:
    • The saved file path(s), or the Markdown (stdout mode).

Defaults (recommended)

  • For most pages: --wait-until networkidle2
  • For heavy apps: start with --wait-until domcontentloaded --wait-ms 2000, then add --wait-for 'main' (or another stable selector) if needed.

Signals

GitHub stars
2k
Forks
225
Last commit
Mar 2026

ahel review

  • K1binfo
    installs-packages
  • K1binfo
    installs-packages (in README.md)

Automated review, not a security audit. Ruleset v1+k2.

Advanced
Catalog kind
skill
Gateway key
web-to-markdown
Source
github.com/softaworks/agent-toolkit