Markdownify MCP Server

Converts webpages into clean, formatted Markdown, optimized for AI consumption and content processing workflows.

Overview

This Apify actor takes a list of URLs, fetches the HTML content, and converts it to structured Markdown. It's designed for building knowledge bases, scraping documentation, migrating web content, and preparing data for AI agents and RAG systems. Output is formatted for use with Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers.

Key Features

• Web to Markdown Conversion: Transforms HTML from any public or authenticated webpage into clean Markdown.
• Precise Content Targeting: Use CSS selectors to include specific page sections or exclude unwanted elements like navbars, footers, or ads.
• JavaScript Rendering: Optional Playwright integration handles dynamic, JavaScript-heavy pages.
• Authentication Support: Configure HTTP Basic Auth credentials for accessing restricted content.
• Customizable Output: Control Markdown heading style (ATX or SETEXT) and specify which HTML tags to strip entirely.
• Structured MCP Output: Returns data in a consistent JSON format suitable for AI tools and pipelines.

How to Use

Provide the target URLs and any configuration via the actor's input. The process is:
1. Fetch: Retrieves page content using HTTP or, if enabled, a headless browser (Playwright).
2. Extract: Applies include/exclude CSS selectors to filter the HTML.
3. Convert: Transforms the filtered HTML into Markdown.
4. Output: Saves each result as a separate item in an Apify dataset.

Input Parameters

Required:
* urls (array): List of webpage URLs to convert.

Optional:
* includeSelectors (array): CSS selectors for sections to include (e.g., ["article", ".main-content"]).
* excludeSelectors (array): CSS selectors for sections to exclude (e.g., ["nav", "footer", ".advertisement"]).
* useJavaScript (boolean): Enable Playwright to render JavaScript. Default: false.
* headingStyle (string): "ATX" (# Heading) or "SETEXT". Default: "ATX".
* stripTags (array): HTML tags to remove completely. Default: ["script", "style", "iframe", "noscript"].
* auth (object): HTTP Basic Auth credentials: {"username": "user", "password": "pass"}.
* timeout (integer): Request timeout in seconds (10-120). Default: 30.

Input Example:

{
  "urls": ["https://apify.com/docs?fpr=python_automation", "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown"],
  "excludeSelectors": ["nav", "footer", ".advertisement"],
  "useJavaScript": false,
  "headingStyle": "ATX",
  "timeout": 30
}

Input/Output

Output Format

Each converted page is saved as a JSON object with the following structure:

{
  "url": "https://example.com",
  "title": "Example Domain",
  "markdown": "# Example Domain\n\nThis domain is for use...",
  "markdown_length": 1234,
  "success": true,
  "error": null,
  "scraped_at": "2025-10-24T10:30:00.000Z",
  "meta": {
    "method": "http",
    "heading_style": "ATX",
    "stripped_tags": ["script", "style"],
    "used_include_selectors": false,
    "used_exclude_selectors": true
  }
}

API Integration Example (JavaScript)

const { ApifyClient } = require("apify-client");
const client = new ApifyClient({ token: "YOUR_API_TOKEN" });

const input = {
  urls: ["https://example.com"],
  excludeSelectors: ["nav", "footer"],
};

const run = await client.actor("YOUR_ACTOR_ID").call(input);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();

items.forEach((item) => {
  console.log(`Title: ${item.title}`);
  console.log(`Markdown length: ${item.markdown_length}`);
  console.log(item.markdown);
});