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# @larvit/adf-codec
Lossless conversion between **Atlassian Document Format** (ADF), an extended markdown flavour, and
an HTML dialect.
**Status: published — the markdown round-trip (`adfToMarkdown`, `markdownToAdf`); HTML at
`0.2.0`.**
Plan: `todo.md`. Decisions: `AGENTS.md`. The flavour's grammar:
[`spec/flavour.md`](https://gitea.larvit.se/larvit/adf-codec/src/branch/main/spec/flavour.md).
Upgrading from `0.1.0`: [convert your markdown first](https://gitea.larvit.se/larvit/adf-codec/src/branch/main/MIGRATION.md).
## What it is for
Atlassian Cloud REST APIs hand out rich text — issue descriptions, comments, pages — as ADF, a
ProseMirror-shaped JSON tree, and take it back the same way. No Atlassian endpoint converts it
(`pf-editor-service/convert` is decommissioned,
[JRACLOUD-77436](https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-77436) open), and the npm ecosystem is
one-directional and lossy. A consumer that shows a document and lets someone edit it needs both
directions lossless — otherwise saving destroys the panels, mentions and attachments it could not
represent.
## Goals
In priority order.
1. **Lossless first.** The round-trip holds for every document, node types this version does not
know included; one that has no spelling is refused and says where, never silently reduced.
Every goal below gives way to this one.
2. **Three formats, ADF the hub.** ADF, one markdown flavour, one HTML dialect, markdown↔HTML
composing through ADF — four conversions to keep correct, never a fifth, and never a fourth
format.
3. **Plain CommonMark is input.** Markdown written for something else converts — the three
carve-outs and the one gap below are the whole of the exception — and every spelling the
flavour claims on top of CommonMark is escapable, so the flavour is opt-in.
4. **Output a person can edit.** A node CommonMark can spell gets that spelling; the directive
form carries only what CommonMark cannot hold.
5. **Failures are values.** Nothing throws, and `code` is a closed list — as much a contract as
the emitted formats are.
6. **Nothing in the way.** No runtime dependencies, no I/O, no configuration, no host API: ESM on
any ES2022 engine, in a browser as readily as on a server.
## Audience
Application developers embedding the library, addressed as personas rather than named consumers
(AGENTS.md §7). All four rely on the guarantees below and on `code` being a closed list; none may
rely on an error message's wording, which is free text.
- **Viewer/editor app** — shows a document, lets a human edit, posts it back. Relies on the
round-trip holding for whatever the site's editor wrote, unknown node types included, and on a
refusal arriving before the save rather than after.
- **Bot posting content** — turns generated markdown into ADF. Relies on plain CommonMark being
valid input, so nothing upstream has to learn the flavour.
- **Export/indexing tool** — converts ADF to markdown or HTML in bulk. Relies on readable output
and on every refusal being deterministic, so a document that fails fails the same way next run.
- **LLM/agent pipeline** — hands documents to a model as markdown and writes the edits back.
Relies on the round-trip and on markdown a reader half-knowing the flavour can still edit.
## The shape
```sh
npm install @larvit/adf-codec
```
```ts
import { markdownToAdf } from '@larvit/adf-codec'
const result = markdownToAdf('# Release notes\n\n!adf:panel info\nShipped on Tuesday.\n!adf:/panel\n')
if (result.ok) {
send(result.value)
} else {
const { code, message, path, position } = result.error
console.error(`${code} at line ${position.line}, ${path.map((step) => '/' + step).join('')}: ${message}`)
}
```
Pure functions, no I/O, no configuration. ADF is the hub: markdown↔HTML compose through it.
```ts
adfToMarkdown(doc: AdfDocument): Result<string>
markdownToAdf(markdown: string): Result<AdfDocument, ParseError>
isAdfDocument(v: unknown): v is AdfDocument
adfToHtml(doc: AdfDocument): Result<string> // 0.2.0
htmlToAdf(html: string): Result<AdfDocument, ParseError> // 0.2.0
markdownToHtml(markdown: string): Result<string> // 0.2.0, via ADF
htmlToMarkdown(html: string): Result<string> // 0.2.0, via ADF
```
`Result<T>` is `{ ok: true; value: T } | { ok: false; error: ConvertError }` — nothing throws.
## The errors
An ADF node type this version does not know is not an error: it is carried opaquely and restores
unchanged (AGENTS.md §3).
`ConvertError` is `{ code, message, path, position? }`. `code` is the exported `ConvertErrorCode`,
stable across minors and safe to `switch` on exhaustively with no `default`; `message` is free text
and may change in any release. A parse always names a position, so `markdownToAdf` returns
`ParseError` and its `position` reads without a guard; an emit reads no source and carries `path`
alone; one handler typed on `ConvertError` takes both, which is what the composed `markdownToHtml`
and `htmlToMarkdown` hand back. `path` is the node's place from the document root, alternating
`'content'` and an index, so `path.map((step) => '/' + step).join('')` is a JSON Pointer at the
node — the empty path being the document itself.
A call reports the first refusal in document order and stops, so a document with several surfaces
them one per call. Every refusal is deterministic — there is no I/O anywhere — so a retry returns
the identical error: fix the input, or set the document aside.
`position` is `{ line, offset }` into the string passed in: `line` counted from 1, `offset` a
UTF-16 code unit, a JavaScript string index rather than a codepoint or a byte offset. It points at
or before the refusal — currently the start of the line the enclosing block begins on; a later
minor may narrow that, never widen it.
Parsing — `markdownToAdf`, and `htmlToAdf` at `0.2.0`:
| Code | Fires when | What you can do |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `malformed-directive` | an `!adf:` the grammar cannot read — a prefix completing no directive, an unclosed container, `[content]` or `{attrs}`, a closer with no container of its name open, a leaf given a body, `{attrs}` out of order or duplicated, invalid JSON in a `carry` | write the spelling the message names, or escape the prefix — `\!adf:`, block and inline alike — to keep it literal text |
| `malformed-pipe-table` | a pipe row that is no pipe table — a missing or ragged `---` delimiter row, an alignment colon in it, or a row not opening with a pipe | open every row with a pipe and give the delimiter row the header's cell count; to keep the lines literal text instead, escape the leading pipe of every one — escaping a single row leaves the next to open a fresh table and fail the same way |
| `unknown-directive-name` | a directive whose name is no node or mark this version spells | check the name in `spec/flavour.md`, or escape the prefix as `\!adf:`; the spelling itself is well formed, so a later minor may give the name meaning |
| `unmappable-html` | the markdown holds a raw HTML tag, comment or processing instruction | remove it or write it in the flavour — ADF holds no raw-HTML node, and the element mapping lands at `0.2.0` |
| `unmappable-image` | an image sits inside other content that is not another image's description, or carries a title | give the image a paragraph of its own and drop the title |
Emitting — `adfToMarkdown`, and `adfToHtml` at `0.2.0`:
| Code | Fires when | What you can do |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `not-an-adf-document` | the value handed in is no ADF document — a missing or wrong `type`, a stray key, a node that is not a node | guard the boundary you receive JSON at with `isAdfDocument`; the message names the branch that refused |
| `unsupported-document-version` | the document's `version` is not 1 | keep the ADF and pass the document over, or show it read-only; the version is the site's, not yours to change |
Either direction. The emitter's own refusals are in this group — a parse reaches them by asking it
which CommonMark spelling a node takes — so the two rows above are not the measure of how often an
emit refuses:
| Code | Fires when | What you can do |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `unspellable-character` | text or a code block holds a carriage return or a null character, which CommonMark rewrites wherever it sits | strip or replace the character; no escape carries it through the round-trip |
| `unspellable-line-start` | a paragraph line begins with a code span whose backticks would read back as a code fence | put any text before the code span |
| `unspellable-whitespace` | an `emoji`, `mention` or `status` holds a newline in the text its inline directive spells in the content slot | replace it with a space — an inline directive never spans lines |
| `unsupported-nesting-depth` | blocks, marks, an attribute's JSON or a carried node's JSON nest past 500 levels | keep the ADF and pass the document over, or show it read-only; flatten the input where you are the one who wrote it |
| `unsupported-node-shape` | a node carries an attribute, value, argument or body its type does not take, or lacks one it needs — or markdown writes as a directive a node or mark the flavour spells as CommonMark | write the shape the message names; `spec/flavour.md` lists every type's attributes and body |
## The guarantees
- `markdownToAdf(adfToMarkdown(doc))` equals `doc` — unknown node types included, carried opaquely
(AGENTS.md §3).
- Plain CommonMark is valid input to `markdownToAdf` apart from the raw HTML below, with three
carve-outs — literal text matching directive, pipe-table or strikethrough syntax is claimed
(escapable — `spec/flavour.md`) — and one gap: a CommonMark image fits only as its own
title-less paragraph; mid-text and titled images are error results, save an image inside
another's description, which flattens into the alt text. Converting back yields the
library's canonical spelling, which round-trips byte-identically — where it converts back at
all: a parse succeeding is no promise of that, so keep the source until the way back succeeds.
``` ` `` ` ``` reads cleanly and then refuses.
- Four CommonMark spellings parse without an error and build a document the reference
implementation renders differently: `[](/url)` and `[]()` stay literal text against CommonMark's
empty link, a list continuing past a marker change stays one list against CommonMark's two, a
shortcut reference matching its definition only under Unicode case folding stays unresolved, and
a link whose text holds an autolink keeps the inner link and leaves the outer brackets literal
text, which the spec requires and the reference itself breaks, nesting one `<a>` in the other.
The first three are pinned `pending` in `corpus/commonmark-spec/exceptions.json`; the suite
holds no example of the fourth.
- Raw HTML in markdown input is an error result, never a silent drop — a tag, a comment and a
processing instruction alike. ADF holds no raw-HTML node; the element mapping ships at `0.2.0`.
- Not every document converts back: `adfToMarkdown` is partial on valid ADF — a text node holding
a carriage return, or a paragraph line beginning with a code span whose backticks read back as a
fence. Show the refusal and keep the document read-only; saving markdown you could not produce
is the loss the round-trip exists to stop.
- The pipe table narrows GFM's twice: every row opens with a pipe, so GFM's bare form is an error
result rather than the prose it reads as, and an alignment colon in the delimiter row is an
error too — ADF holds no column alignment. The trailing pipe is canonical output, optional in
input.
- Past that and `~~`, no GFM: an autolink literal and a `- [ ]` marker stay text, and a checklist
is the `taskList` directive.
- A document nested deeper than 500 levels is an error result, not a stack overflow.
- The emitted formats are semver surface (AGENTS.md §8).
- **`0.2.0`** — `htmlToAdf(adfToHtml(doc))` equals `doc`; fidelity HTML cannot express rides
`data-*` attributes. Foreign HTML maps a documented element set, an unmappable element is an
error, and well-formed HTML only — no tag-soup recovery.
## The package
ESM only, no runtime dependencies, public npmjs. Built JavaScript with `.d.ts` beside it.
Pure ECMAScript at an ES2022 baseline, reaching for no host API; the test suite runs under Node,
Deno and Bun, and a headless Firefox converts the corpus through the built entrypoint.
Contract: `AGENTS.md` §5–6.