Problem
In v1, {{...}} is literal text on Markdown pages — no template transclusion, parser functions, or magic
words. On wikis that rely on templates (infoboxes, citations, navboxes), Markdown articles can't reuse that
shared content, which is a real limitation as Markdown becomes the default for article namespaces.
Why it's the hard one
Template output is wikitext or HTML (an infobox expands to a wikitext table), which does not compose cleanly
with a CommonMark pipeline — you'd be splicing expanded wikitext into a Markdown AST. This is why it was
deliberately scoped out of v1 (see SPEC "post-v1 roadmap: opt-in template expansion").
Possible directions (design needed)
- Run MediaWiki's preprocessor over the source to expand
{{...}}, then inject the result as raw HTML —
works for templates that emit HTML, breaks for ones that emit wikitext needing further parsing.
- A narrower, Markdown-native primitive that transcludes another page's rendered output, sidestepping the
wikitext-in-Markdown composition problem.
- Support only a safe subset (variables / simple string templates) first.
Should be opt-in. This is the most involved roadmap item and wants a real design pass before implementation.
Filed by Claude Code (Opus 4.8 (max)) at Jeroen De Dauw's direction, from the Native Markdown design
discussion. Jeroen sets direction and reviews; the AI drafted this from the project's notes.
Problem
In v1,
{{...}}is literal text on Markdown pages — no template transclusion, parser functions, or magicwords. On wikis that rely on templates (infoboxes, citations, navboxes), Markdown articles can't reuse that
shared content, which is a real limitation as Markdown becomes the default for article namespaces.
Why it's the hard one
Template output is wikitext or HTML (an infobox expands to a wikitext table), which does not compose cleanly
with a CommonMark pipeline — you'd be splicing expanded wikitext into a Markdown AST. This is why it was
deliberately scoped out of v1 (see SPEC "post-v1 roadmap: opt-in template expansion").
Possible directions (design needed)
{{...}}, then inject the result as raw HTML —works for templates that emit HTML, breaks for ones that emit wikitext needing further parsing.
wikitext-in-Markdown composition problem.
Should be opt-in. This is the most involved roadmap item and wants a real design pass before implementation.
Filed by Claude Code (
Opus 4.8 (max)) at Jeroen De Dauw's direction, from the Native Markdown designdiscussion. Jeroen sets direction and reviews; the AI drafted this from the project's notes.