Markdown is a lightweight markup language widely used for formatting plain text documents. It provides a simple, human-readable way to structure text with headers, lists, links, emphasis, and other basic formatting.

CommonMark is a formal specification that defines a consistent, unambiguous syntax for Markdown, resolving inconsistencies found across different Markdown implementations. Stencila uses CommonMark as the baseline Markdown dialect.

In addition to CommonMark, Stencila supports several Markdown flavors with extensions for document elements not part of the CommonMark specification:

For richer round-tripping of Stencila documents, consider using one of these flavored formats instead of plain CommonMark.

To convert to/from CommonMark, use the .md file extension, or the --to md or --from md options e.g.

Stencila supports bi-directional conversion between Stencila documents and CommonMark. Parsing is powered by the markdown Rust crate. Extensions to CommonMark (e.g. tables, strikethrough, task lists) are either supported by the markdown crate or by Stencila's own parsing functions, mostly written using the winnow crate.