A lightweight markup language that uses plain text formatting conventions to produce structured documents, readable without rendering.
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Markdown uses simple syntax — headings with #, bold with **, lists with - — to create structured content from plain text. Created by John Gruber in 2004, it has become the default format for documentation, README files, and AI agent configuration (CLAUDE.md, rules files, skill definitions). Language models generate it natively and humans can edit it without tooling. It is also token-efficient compared to HTML or XML.
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