remark-github

What is remark-github?

The remark-github package is a plugin for remark (a Markdown processor) that automatically links references to GitHub issues, pull requests, and users in Markdown files. It enhances Markdown documents by converting GitHub references into clickable links, making it easier to navigate and understand the context of the references.

What are remark-github's main functionalities?

Linking GitHub Issues and Pull Requests

This feature allows you to automatically convert references to GitHub issues and pull requests into clickable links. In the example, the text 'This is a reference to issue #42' will be converted to a link pointing to the issue number 42 in the specified repository.

const remark = require('remark');
const remarkGithub = require('remark-github');

remark()
  .use(remarkGithub, { repository: 'user/repo' })
  .process('This is a reference to issue #42', function (err, file) {
    if (err) throw err;
    console.log(String(file));
  });

Linking GitHub Users

This feature allows you to automatically convert references to GitHub users into clickable links. In the example, the text 'This is a reference to @username' will be converted to a link pointing to the GitHub profile of the specified user.

const remark = require('remark');
const remarkGithub = require('remark-github');

remark()
  .use(remarkGithub, { repository: 'user/repo' })
  .process('This is a reference to @username', function (err, file) {
    if (err) throw err;
    console.log(String(file));
  });

Other packages similar to remark-github

remark-mentions

The remark-mentions package is a plugin for remark that converts @mentions in Markdown to links. It is similar to remark-github in that it provides automatic linking for user mentions, but it does not handle issue or pull request references.

remark-autolink-headings

The remark-autolink-headings package is a plugin for remark that automatically adds links to headings in Markdown files. While it does not specifically target GitHub references, it provides similar functionality in terms of enhancing Markdown documents with automatic links.

remark-slug

The remark-slug package is a plugin for remark that adds slugs to headings in Markdown files, making them linkable. This package is useful for creating anchor links within a document, but it does not provide the GitHub-specific linking features of remark-github.

README

remark-github

remark plugin to link references to commits, issues, and users, in the same way that GitHub does in comments, issues, PRs, and releases (see Writing on GitHub).

Contents

• What is this?
• When should I use this?
• Install
• Use
• API
  • unified().use(remarkGithub[, options])
• Examples
  • Example: buildUrl
• Syntax
• Types
• Compatibility
• Security
• Related
• Contribute
• License

What is this?

This package is a unified (remark) plugin to link references to commits, issues, and users: @wooorm -> [**@wooorm**](https://github.com/wooorm).

unified is a project that transforms content with abstract syntax trees (ASTs). remark adds support for markdown to unified. mdast is the markdown AST that remark uses. This is a remark plugin that transforms mdast.

When should I use this?

This project is useful if you want to emulate how markdown would work in GitHub comments, issues, PRs, or releases, but it’s actually displayed somewhere else (on a website, or in other places on GitHub which don’t link references, such as markdown in a repo or Gist). This plugin does not support other platforms such as GitLab or Bitbucket and their custom features.

A different plugin, remark-gfm, adds support for GFM (GitHub Flavored Markdown). GFM is a set of extensions (autolink literals, footnotes, strikethrough, tables, and tasklists) to markdown that are supported everywhere on GitHub.

Another plugin, remark-breaks, turns soft line endings (enters) into hard breaks (<br>s). GitHub does this in a few places (comments, issues, PRs, and releases), but it’s not semantic according to HTML and not compliant to markdown.

Yet another plugin, remark-frontmatter, adds support for YAML frontmatter. GitHub supports frontmatter for files in Gists and repos.

Install

This package is ESM only. In Node.js (version 12.20+, 14.14+, or 16.0+), install with npm:

npm install remark-github

In Deno with Skypack:

import remarkGithub from 'https://cdn.skypack.dev/remark-github@11?dts'

In browsers with Skypack:

<script type="module">
  import remarkGithub from 'https://cdn.skypack.dev/remark-github@11?min'
</script>

Use

Say we have the following file, example.md:

Some references:

*   Commit: f8083175fe890cbf14f41d0a06e7aa35d4989587
*   Commit (fork): foo@f8083175fe890cbf14f41d0a06e7aa35d4989587
*   Commit (repo): remarkjs/remark@e1aa9f6c02de18b9459b7d269712bcb50183ce89
*   Issue or PR (`#`): #1
*   Issue or PR (`GH-`): GH-1
*   Issue or PR (fork): foo#1
*   Issue or PR (project): remarkjs/remark#1
*   Mention: @wooorm

Some links:

*   Commit: <https://github.com/remarkjs/remark/commit/e1aa9f6c02de18b9459b7d269712bcb50183ce89>
*   Commit comment: <https://github.com/remarkjs/remark/commit/ac63bc3abacf14cf08ca5e2d8f1f8e88a7b9015c#commitcomment-16372693>
*   Issue or PR: <https://github.com/remarkjs/remark/issues/182>
*   Issue or PR comment: <https://github.com/remarkjs/remark-github/issues/3#issue-151160339>
*   Mention: <https://github.com/ben-eb>

And our module, example.js, looks as follows:

import {read} from 'to-vfile'
import {remark} from 'remark'
import remarkGfm from 'remark-gfm'
import remarkGithub from 'remark-github'

main()

async function main() {
  const file = await remark()
    .use(remarkGfm)
    .use(remarkGithub)
    .process(await read('example.md'))

  console.log(String(file))
}

Now, running node example yields:

Some references:

*   Commit: [`f808317`](https://github.com/remarkjs/remark-github/commit/f8083175fe890cbf14f41d0a06e7aa35d4989587)
*   Commit (fork): [foo@`f808317`](https://github.com/foo/remark-github/commit/f8083175fe890cbf14f41d0a06e7aa35d4989587)
*   Commit (repo): [remarkjs/remark@`e1aa9f6`](https://github.com/remarkjs/remark/commit/e1aa9f6c02de18b9459b7d269712bcb50183ce89)
*   Issue or PR (`#`): [#1](https://github.com/remarkjs/remark-github/issues/1)
*   Issue or PR (`GH-`): [GH-1](https://github.com/remarkjs/remark-github/issues/1)
*   Issue or PR (fork): [foo#1](https://github.com/foo/remark-github/issues/1)
*   Issue or PR (project): [remarkjs/remark#1](https://github.com/remarkjs/remark/issues/1)
*   Mention: [**@wooorm**](https://github.com/wooorm)

Some links:

*   Commit: [remarkjs/remark@`e1aa9f6`](https://github.com/remarkjs/remark/commit/e1aa9f6c02de18b9459b7d269712bcb50183ce89)
*   Commit comment: [remarkjs/remark@`ac63bc3` (comment)](https://github.com/remarkjs/remark/commit/ac63bc3abacf14cf08ca5e2d8f1f8e88a7b9015c#commitcomment-16372693)
*   Issue or PR: [remarkjs/remark#182](https://github.com/remarkjs/remark/issues/182)
*   Issue or PR comment: [#3 (comment)](https://github.com/remarkjs/remark-github/issues/3#issue-151160339)
*   Mention: <https://github.com/ben-eb>

API

This package exports no identifiers. The default export is remarkGithub.

unified().use(remarkGithub[, options])

Link references to users, commits, and issues, in the same way that GitHub does in comments, issues, PRs, and releases (see Writing on GitHub).

options

Configuration (optional).

options.repository

Repository to link against (string, optional). Detected in Node.js from the repository field in package.json if not given. Should point to a GitHub repository, such as 'https://github.com/user/project.git' or 'user/project'.

options.mentionStrong

Wrap mentions in strong (boolean, default: true). This makes them render more like how GitHub styles them. But GitHub itself uses CSS instead of strong.

options.buildUrl

Change how (and whether) things are linked (Function, optional). This can be used to point links to GitHub Enterprise or other places. It’s called with the following parameters:

• values (BuildUrlValues) — info on the link to build
• defaultBuildUrl ((values: BuildUrlValues) => string) — function that can be called to perform normal behavior

It should return the URL to use (string) or false to not create a link.

The following schemas are passed as BuildUrlValues:

• {type: 'commit', user, project, hash}
• {type: 'compare', user, project, base, compare}
• {type: 'issue', user, project, no}
• {type: 'mention', user}

Examples

Example: buildUrl

A buildUrl can be passed to not link mentions. For example, by changing example.js from before like so:

@@ -8,7 +8,11 @@ main()
 async function main() {
   const file = await remark()
     .use(remarkGfm)
-    .use(remarkGithub)
+    .use(remarkGithub, {
+      buildUrl(values, defaultBuildUrl) {
+        return values.type === 'mention' ? false : defaultBuildUrl(values)
+      }
+    })
     .process(await read('example.md'))

   console.log(String(file))

To instead point mentions to a different place, change example.js like so:

@@ -8,7 +8,13 @@ main()
 async function main() {
   const file = await remark()
     .use(remarkGfm)
-    .use(remarkGithub)
+    .use(remarkGithub, {
+      buildUrl(values, defaultBuildUrl) {
+        return values.type === 'mention'
+          ? `https://yourwebsite.com/${values.user}/`
+          : defaultBuildUrl(values)
+      }
+    })
     .process(await read('example.md'))

   console.log(String(file))

Syntax

The following references are supported:

• Commits: 1f2a4fb → 1f2a4fb
• Commits across forks: remarkjs@1f2a4fb → remarkjs@1f2a4fb
• Commits across projects: remarkjs/remark-github@1f2a4fb → remarkjs/remark-github@1f2a4fb
• Compare ranges: e2acebc...2aa9311 → e2acebc...2aa9311
• Compare ranges across forks: remarkjs@e2acebc...2aa9311 → remarkjs/remark-github@e2acebc...2aa9311
• Compare ranges across projects: remarkjs/remark-github@e2acebc...2aa9311 → remarkjs/remark-github@e2acebc...2aa9311
• Prefix issues: GH-1 → GH-1
• Hash issues: #1 → #1
• Issues across forks: remarkjs#1 → remarkjs#1
• Issues across projects: remarkjs/remark-github#1 → remarkjs/remark-github#1
• At-mentions: @wooorm → @wooorm

Autolinks to these references are also transformed: https://github.com/wooorm -> [**@wooorm**](https://github.com/wooorm)

Types

This package is fully typed with TypeScript. It exports an Options type, which specifies the interface of the accepted options. There are also BuildUrl, BuildUrlValues, BuildUrlCommitValues, BuildUrlCompareValues, BuildUrlIssueValues, BuildUrlMentionValues, and DefaultBuildUrl types exported.

Compatibility

Projects maintained by the unified collective are compatible with all maintained versions of Node.js. As of now, that is Node.js 12.20+, 14.14+, and 16.0+. Our projects sometimes work with older versions, but this is not guaranteed.

This plugin works with unified version 6+ and remark version 7+.

Security

Use of remark-github does not involve rehype (hast). It does inject links based on user content, but those links only go to GitHub. There are no openings for cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks.

Related

• remark-gfm — support GFM (autolink literals, footnotes, strikethrough, tables, tasklists)
• remark-breaks — support breaks without needing spaces or escapes (enters to <br>)
• remark-frontmatter — support frontmatter (YAML, TOML, and more)

Contribute

See contributing.md in remarkjs/.github for ways to get started. See support.md for ways to get help.

This project has a code of conduct. By interacting with this repository, organization, or community you agree to abide by its terms.

License

MIT © Titus Wormer