What Accept Markdown Means

Accept Markdown is the practice of returning a Markdown representation when a client asks for it with the HTTP Accept header:

Accept: text/markdown

The URL does not need to change. A browser can receive HTML from /docs, while an agent can receive Markdown from the same /docs URL.

Why the same URL matters

One URL keeps canonical links, analytics, permissions, and routing simple. The server chooses the representation based on the request:

• Accept: text/html returns the normal page.
• Accept: text/markdown returns Markdown.
• Broad headers can fall back to HTML when Markdown is not requested.

Where accept-md fits

accept-md adds this behavior to existing Next.js and SvelteKit apps. It does not ask you to move content into a separate Markdown-only CMS. Your page renders as HTML, then the runtime converts that HTML into a clean Markdown response for clients that request it.

What makes it production-ready

A production implementation should:

• return Content-Type: text/markdown for Markdown requests
• set Vary: Accept
• keep HTML behavior unchanged for browsers
• exclude API and private routes
• preserve useful metadata for agents

That is the core contract accept-md is designed to make easy.