What does the YAML output represent?

The document's structural skeleton — front matter, headings, lists, and links — flattened into a YAML hierarchy you can feed into other tools.

Is the body content kept?

Paragraph text is included as scalar values under the appropriate headings, while code blocks and complex inline formatting are kept as raw strings.

Why convert Markdown to YAML?

Useful for content-as-data workflows where you need to treat documents like configuration — for example, feeding them into a static-site generator.

Is anything uploaded?

No. Conversion runs in your browser locally.

extracts front matter + heading outline as YAML

Convert Markdown to YAML outline

Pull the heading tree and front matter out of a Markdown document into a clean YAML structure — ready for pipelines, indexes, and tooling.

Markdown → YAML

Input

138 B

18 lines

Output

292 B

18 lines

Status

ready

live

Ratio

2.12×

out/in

input · markdown

output · yaml

frontMatter: |
  title: Hello
  date: 2026-01-01
headings:
  - level: 1
    text: Introduction
  - level: 2
    text: Goals
  - level: 3
    text: Long-term
  - level: 3
    text: Short-term
  - level: 2
    text: Non-goals
  - level: 1
    text: Implementation
  - level: 2
    text: Phase 1

Quick Start

How to convert Markdown to YAML

Detects front matter (--- delimited) and lifts it into a frontMatter block; then scans every heading and emits a list of objects with level and text.

01
Paste Markdown
With or without YAML front matter.
Parsing runs through marked with GFM extensions enabled — tables, task lists, strikethrough, and fenced code blocks all match GitHub’s rendering.
inputGFMmarkedCommonMarklive
input · markdownmd · GFM
```
# Title
```
loaded · GFMGFM · ready
02
Lift front matter
Everything between --- becomes a folded YAML block.
Soft-break behaviour is configurable: by default a single newline becomes a space (CommonMark), toggle on for chat-style <br> insertion.
fmsoft-breaksoptionsconfiglive
fm · optionsyaml · live
```
frontMatter: |
```
options applied · livelive
03
Outline headings
Each heading becomes a list item with level and text.
The preview is scoped under a .mde class so its CSS doesn’t bleed into the rest of the page. Output HTML is whitespace-controlled for clean diffs.
outlinepreviewscoped CSSrenderstable
out · renderedtree · ready
```
- level: 1
  text: Title
```
rendered · liverendered
04
Download .yaml
Drop into CI / search / docs pipelines.
Export covers both raw Markdown and rendered HTML; downloads stream as text/markdown or text/html via Blob + object URL.
exportclipboard.md.htmlblob
✓ · exported.yaml · done
```
✓ yaml
```
shipped · ready to shipsuccess

Pro tips

Author Markdown that renders everywhere

GFM is the safe default

GitHub-Flavored Markdown is the de-facto baseline (tables, task lists, strikethrough). CommonMark is stricter but ubiquitous as a fallback.

Soft-break behaviour varies

A single newline is a space in CommonMark, a <br> in GFM. Toggle soft breaks when source matters.

Escape inside code fences

Backticks inside fenced blocks need a longer fence — three becomes four. Use ~~~ if your content has many backticks.

Anchors are slugified

GitHub lowercases, strips punctuation, and joins with hyphens. Duplicate headings get -1, -2 suffixes.

Tables need a header row

The dash row sets alignment (:---, :-:, ---:). Use Table Aligner for diff-friendly columns.

Front matter is YAML

Triple-dash blocks at the top of files are parsed by static-site generators. Use the Front-Matter Validator to catch syntax errors.

Use Cases

When to convert Markdown to YAML

When you need structure but not full prose.

Site indexes

Generate sitemap-style structure data from docs. Render path uses marked with GFM extensions enabled (tables, task lists, strikethrough, autolinks), so what you preview matches what GitHub publishes bit-for-bit. Soft-break behaviour is configurable for chat-style vs prose Markdown.

GFM-compliant

CI pipelines

Validate doc structure with a YAML schema in CI. Pairs cleanly with the Markdown Cheatsheet for syntax you can't quite remember — callout blocks, footnotes, definition lists. Output stays diff-friendly so style-only changes don't drown out real edits in PRs.

GitHub-perfect

Search indexing

Feed heading outline to Algolia / Elasticsearch. Cross-platform safe: anchors, code fences, and tables behave identically on GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, and Gitea. Heading-anchor slugs follow GitHub's lowercase-and-hyphenate rules so deep links survive a docs migration.

diff-friendly

Doc audits

Diff outlines across versions to track restructures. No server roundtrip — perfect for proprietary content you can't paste into a public tool. The full marked + GFM bundle ships with the page, so it works offline once loaded.

render-stable

Nav generation

Build sidebars from heading trees. Front matter (YAML / TOML / JSON) passes through unchanged so static-site pipelines (Jekyll, Hugo, Astro, Eleventy) read it correctly. Pair with the Front-Matter Validator to catch syntax errors before deploy.

cross-platform

Front matter QA

Inspect detected front matter alongside structure. Output is reproducible: identical input always produces identical Markdown, so doc-generation scripts can rely on it for snapshot tests and embedded into release workflows.

SEO-friendly

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Does it parse the YAML front matter?

No — the front matter is preserved as a folded scalar (frontMatter: |) so you can pipe it to a real YAML parser.

What headings are included?

H1 through H6, in document order. Code-fenced text isn't included since headings inside ``` blocks are not parsed.

Are tags / nested lists captured?

No — this tool focuses on heading outline. Use MD to JSON for a fuller AST.

Will Unicode survive?

Yes. Non-ASCII is wrapped in quotes when needed by yamlEscape.

Does any data leave my browser?

No. Conversion runs locally in your browser.

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