baoyu-url-to-markdown

URL to Markdown

Fetches any URL via Chrome CDP, saves the rendered HTML snapshot, and converts it to clean markdown.

Script Directory

Important: All scripts are located in the scripts/ subdirectory of this skill.

Agent Execution Instructions:

1. Determine this SKILL.md file's directory path as {baseDir}
2. Script path = {baseDir}/scripts/<script-name>.ts
3. Resolve ${BUN_X} runtime: if bun installed → bun; if npx available → npx -y bun; else suggest installing bun
4. Replace all {baseDir} and ${BUN_X} in this document with actual values

Script Reference:

Script	Purpose
scripts/main.ts	CLI entry point for URL fetching
scripts/html-to-markdown.ts	Markdown conversion entry point and converter selection
scripts/defuddle-converter.ts	Defuddle-based conversion
scripts/legacy-converter.ts	Pre-Defuddle legacy extraction and markdown conversion
scripts/markdown-conversion-shared.ts	Shared metadata parsing and markdown document helpers

Preferences (EXTEND.md)

Check EXTEND.md existence (priority order):

# macOS, Linux, WSL, Git Bash
test -f .baoyu-skills/baoyu-url-to-markdown/EXTEND.md && echo "project"
test -f "${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$HOME/.config}/baoyu-skills/baoyu-url-to-markdown/EXTEND.md" && echo "xdg"
test -f "$HOME/.baoyu-skills/baoyu-url-to-markdown/EXTEND.md" && echo "user"

# PowerShell (Windows)
if (Test-Path .baoyu-skills/baoyu-url-to-markdown/EXTEND.md) { "project" }
$xdg = if ($env:XDG_CONFIG_HOME) { $env:XDG_CONFIG_HOME } else { "$HOME/.config" }
if (Test-Path "$xdg/baoyu-skills/baoyu-url-to-markdown/EXTEND.md") { "xdg" }
if (Test-Path "$HOME/.baoyu-skills/baoyu-url-to-markdown/EXTEND.md") { "user" }

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┬───────────────────┐ │ Path │ Location │ ├────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────┤ │ .baoyu-skills/baoyu-url-to-markdown/EXTEND.md │ Project directory │ ├────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────┤ │ $HOME/.baoyu-skills/baoyu-url-to-markdown/EXTEND.md │ User home │ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┴───────────────────┘

┌───────────┬───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Result │ Action │ ├───────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ Found │ Read, parse, apply settings │ ├───────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ Not found │ MUST run first-time setup (see below) — do NOT silently create defaults │ └───────────┴───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

EXTEND.md Supports: Download media by default | Default output directory | Default capture mode | Timeout settings

First-Time Setup (BLOCKING)

CRITICAL: When EXTEND.md is not found, you MUST use AskUserQuestion to ask the user for their preferences before creating EXTEND.md. NEVER create EXTEND.md with defaults without asking. This is a BLOCKING operation — do NOT proceed with any conversion until setup is complete.

Use AskUserQuestion with ALL questions in ONE call:

Question 1 — header: "Media", question: "How to handle images and videos in pages?"

• "Ask each time (Recommended)" — After saving markdown, ask whether to download media
• "Always download" — Always download media to local imgs/ and videos/ directories
• "Never download" — Keep original remote URLs in markdown

Question 2 — header: "Output", question: "Default output directory?"

• "url-to-markdown (Recommended)" — Save to ./url-to-markdown/{domain}/{slug}.md
• (User may choose "Other" to type a custom path)

Question 3 — header: "Save", question: "Where to save preferences?"

• "User (Recommended)" — ~/.baoyu-skills/ (all projects)
• "Project" — .baoyu-skills/ (this project only)

After user answers, create EXTEND.md at the chosen location, confirm "Preferences saved to [path]", then continue.

Full reference: references/config/first-time-setup.md

Supported Keys

Key	Default	Values	Description
download_media	ask	ask / 1 / 0	ask = prompt each time, 1 = always download, 0 = never
default_output_dir	empty	path or empty	Default output directory (empty = ./url-to-markdown/)

EXTEND.md → CLI mapping:

EXTEND.md key	CLI argument	Notes
download_media: 1	--download-media
default_output_dir: ./posts/	--output-dir ./posts/	Directory path. Do NOT pass to -o (which expects a file path)

Value priority:

1. CLI arguments (--download-media, -o, --output-dir)
2. EXTEND.md
3. Skill defaults

Features

• Chrome CDP for full JavaScript rendering
• Two capture modes: auto or wait-for-user
• Save rendered HTML as a sibling -captured.html file
• Clean markdown output with metadata
• Upgraded Defuddle-first markdown conversion with automatic fallback to the pre-Defuddle extractor from git history
• Materializes shadow DOM content before conversion so web-component pages survive serialization better
• YouTube pages can include transcript/caption text in the markdown when YouTube exposes a caption track
• If local browser capture fails completely, can fall back to defuddle.md/<url> and still save markdown
• Handles login-required pages via wait mode
• Download images and videos to local directories

Usage

# Auto mode (default) - capture when page loads
${BUN_X} {baseDir}/scripts/main.ts <url>

# Wait mode - wait for user signal before capture
${BUN_X} {baseDir}/scripts/main.ts <url> --wait

# Save to specific file
${BUN_X} {baseDir}/scripts/main.ts <url> -o output.md

# Save to a custom output directory (auto-generates filename)
${BUN_X} {baseDir}/scripts/main.ts <url> --output-dir ./posts/

# Download images and videos to local directories
${BUN_X} {baseDir}/scripts/main.ts <url> --download-media

Options

Option	Description
<url>	URL to fetch
-o <path>	Output file path — must be a file path, not directory (default: auto-generated)
--output-dir <dir>	Base output directory — auto-generates {dir}/{domain}/{slug}.md (default: ./url-to-markdown/)
--wait	Wait for user signal before capturing
--timeout <ms>	Page load timeout (default: 30000)
--download-media	Download image/video assets to local imgs/ and videos/, and rewrite markdown links to local relative paths

Capture Modes

Mode	Behavior	Use When
Auto (default)	Capture on network idle	Public pages, static content
Wait (--wait)	User signals when ready	Login-required, lazy loading, paywalls

Wait mode workflow:

1. Run with --wait → script outputs "Press Enter when ready"
2. Ask user to confirm page is ready
3. Send newline to stdin to trigger capture

Output Format

Each run saves two files side by side:

• Markdown: YAML front matter with url, title, description, author, published, optional coverImage, and captured_at, followed by converted markdown content
• HTML snapshot: *-captured.html, containing the rendered page HTML captured from Chrome

When Defuddle or page metadata provides a language hint, the markdown front matter also includes language.

The HTML snapshot is saved before any markdown media localization, so it stays a faithful capture of the page DOM used for conversion. If the hosted defuddle.md API fallback is used, markdown is still saved, but there is no local -captured.html snapshot for that run.

Output Directory

Default: url-to-markdown/<domain>/<slug>.md With --output-dir ./posts/: ./posts/<domain>/<slug>.md

HTML snapshot path uses the same basename:

• url-to-markdown/<domain>/<slug>-captured.html

• ./posts/<domain>/<slug>-captured.html

• <slug>: From page title or URL path (kebab-case, 2-6 words)

• Conflict resolution: Append timestamp <slug>-YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS.md

When --download-media is enabled:

• Images are saved to imgs/ next to the markdown file
• Videos are saved to videos/ next to the markdown file
• Markdown media links are rewritten to local relative paths

Conversion Fallback

Conversion order:

1. Try Defuddle first
2. For rich pages such as YouTube, prefer Defuddle's extractor-specific output (including transcripts when available) instead of replacing it with the legacy pipeline
3. If Defuddle throws, cannot load, returns obviously incomplete markdown, or captures lower-quality content than the legacy pipeline, automatically fall back to the pre-Defuddle extractor
4. If the entire local browser capture flow fails before markdown can be produced, try the hosted https://defuddle.md/<url> API and save its markdown output directly
5. The legacy fallback path uses the older Readability/selector/Next.js-data based HTML-to-Markdown implementation recovered from git history

CLI output will show:

• Converter: defuddle when Defuddle succeeds
• Converter: legacy:... plus Fallback used: ... when fallback was needed
• Converter: defuddle-api when local browser capture failed and the hosted API was used instead

Media Download Workflow

Based on download_media setting in EXTEND.md:

Setting	Behavior
1 (always)	Run script with --download-media flag
0 (never)	Run script without --download-media flag
ask (default)	Follow the ask-each-time flow below

Ask-Each-Time Flow

1. Run script without --download-media → markdown saved
2. Check saved markdown for remote media URLs (https:// in image/video links)
3. If no remote media found → done, no prompt needed
4. If remote media found → use AskUserQuestion:
   • header: "Media", question: "Download N images/videos to local files?"
   • "Yes" — Download to local directories
   • "No" — Keep remote URLs
5. If user confirms → run script again with --download-media (overwrites markdown with localized links)

Environment Variables

Variable	Description
URL_CHROME_PATH	Custom Chrome executable path
URL_DATA_DIR	Custom data directory
URL_CHROME_PROFILE_DIR	Custom Chrome profile directory

Troubleshooting: Chrome not found → set URL_CHROME_PATH. Timeout → increase --timeout. Complex pages → try --wait mode. If markdown quality is poor, inspect the saved -captured.html and check whether the run logged a legacy fallback.

YouTube Notes

• The upgraded Defuddle path uses async extractors, so YouTube pages can include transcript text directly in the markdown body.
• Transcript availability depends on YouTube exposing a caption track. Videos with captions disabled, restricted playback, or blocked regional access may still produce description-only output.
• If the page needs time to finish loading descriptions, chapters, or player metadata, prefer --wait and capture after the watch page is fully hydrated.

Hosted API Fallback

• The hosted fallback endpoint is https://defuddle.md/<url>. In shell form: curl https://defuddle.md/stephango.com
• Use it only when the local Chrome/CDP capture path fails outright. The local path still has higher fidelity because it can save the captured HTML and handle authenticated pages.
• The hosted API already returns Markdown with YAML frontmatter, so save that response as-is and then apply the normal media-localization step if requested.

Extension Support

Custom configurations via EXTEND.md. See Preferences section for paths and supported options.