Conway-Markdown (conwaymd, CMD)

Conway-Markdown is:

A replacement-driven markup language inspired by Markdown.
A demonstration of the folly of throwing regex at a parsing problem.
The result of someone joking that "the filenames would look like Windows executables from the 90s".
Implemented in Python 3.{whatever Debian stable is at}.
Licensed under "MIT No Attribution" (MIT-0), see LICENSE.

For detailed documentation, see <https://conwaymd.github.io/>.

Installation

Conway-Markdown is published to PyPI as conwaymd:

$ pip3 install conwaymd

If simply using as a command line tool, do pipx instead of pip3 to avoid having to set up a virtual environment.
If using Windows, do pip instead of pip3.

Usage (command line)

$ cmd [-h] [-v] [-a] [-x] [file.cmd ...]

Convert Conway-Markdown (CMD) to HTML.

positional arguments:
  file.cmd       name of CMD file to be converted (can be abbreviated as
                 `file` or `file.` for increased productivity)

options:
  -h, --help     show this help message and exit
  -v, --version  show program's version number and exit
  -a, --all      convert all CMD files under the working directory
  -x, --verbose  run in verbose mode (prints every replacement applied)

On Windows:

Use the aliases cmd- or conwaymd instead of cmd to avoid summoning Command Prompt.
Beware not to run any .cmd files by accident; they might break your computer. God save!

Usage (scripting example)

Code:

from conwaymd.core import cmd_to_html

cmd_content = '''
# Test
==
- This is a *near*-minimal test.
- Here be [__dragons__].
==
[__dragons__]: https://example.com/
'''

html_content = cmd_to_html(cmd_content, cmd_file_name='scripting-test.py')

print(html_content)

Output:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<title>Title</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Test</h1>
<ul>
<li>
This is a <em>near</em>-minimal test.
</li>
<li>
Here be <a href="https://example.com/"><b>dragons</b></a>.
</li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>

Features

Specify element attributes (e.g. id and class)
Write arbitrary text outside code
Use <b>, <i>, and <cite> elements, not just <strong> and <em>
Use <div> elements without falling back to HTML
Define your own syntax as you go

Release files for conwaymd 6.0.0

For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.

Source distribution (sdist)

Source distribution for conwaymd 6.0.0
File	Size	Uploaded
conwaymd-6.0.0.tar.gz	30.1 kB	Jan 6, 2026	Details

Built distribution (wheel)

Table of built distributions (wheels) for conwaymd 6.0.0
File	Interpreter	ABI	Platform	Reset
conwaymd-6.0.0-py3-none-any.whl 34.0 kB Jan 6, 2026	Python 3	none	any	Details

Total release size: 64.1 kB

Release files / conwaymd-6.0.0.tar.gz

Download URL	conwaymd-6.0.0.tar.gz
Size	30.1 kB
Tags	Source
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums	`d512096bdf5bb0fd22087729ccfed6cd4a8b98fe275e8f4f137e5f4836455307`
BLAKE2b-256 checksum How to use checksums	`88f872a3de3b00986aecc459807204beb74ceea312aadde812179dc71c38cd39`
Upload date	Jan 6, 2026
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing?	Yes
Uploaded via	`twine/6.1.0 CPython/3.13.7`

Provenance

Provenance describes where a file came from. On PyPI, provenance is shared via attestations, which provide a verifiable record of the build or publishing details. View details, limitations and caveats.

Identity

Publishing platform: GitHub Actions
Publishing repository: github.com/conwaymd/conwaymd
Publishing commit: github.com/conwaymd/conwaymd/tree/830e91be610825c8a31ef671c9efe69a306308b3

Workflow

Publishing configuration: github.com/conwaymd/conwaymd/blob/830e91be610825c8a31ef671c9efe69a306308b3/.github/workflows/publish.yml
Publishing logs: github.com/conwaymd/conwaymd/actions/runs/20756347938/attempts/1

Artifact

Subject: conwaymd-6.0.0.tar.gz
SHA-256 checksum: d512096bdf5bb0fd22087729ccfed6cd4a8b98fe275e8f4f137e5f4836455307 Verifying attestations

Release files / conwaymd-6.0.0-py3-none-any.whl

Download URL	conwaymd-6.0.0-py3-none-any.whl
Size	34.0 kB
Tags	Python 3
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums	`8f3fb1544a387b51020852391c2bb05505594de1d1a28cd6c0b69aa320594926`
BLAKE2b-256 checksum How to use checksums	`12b6ec433e3ad2738b3d576c8320817845af099457a1a78f584a280f60e0ae3c`
Upload date	Jan 6, 2026
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing?	Yes
Uploaded via	`twine/6.1.0 CPython/3.13.7`

Provenance

Identity

Publishing platform: GitHub Actions
Publishing repository: github.com/conwaymd/conwaymd
Publishing commit: github.com/conwaymd/conwaymd/tree/830e91be610825c8a31ef671c9efe69a306308b3

Workflow

Publishing configuration: github.com/conwaymd/conwaymd/blob/830e91be610825c8a31ef671c9efe69a306308b3/.github/workflows/publish.yml
Publishing logs: github.com/conwaymd/conwaymd/actions/runs/20756347938/attempts/1

Artifact

Subject: conwaymd-6.0.0-py3-none-any.whl
SHA-256 checksum: 8f3fb1544a387b51020852391c2bb05505594de1d1a28cd6c0b69aa320594926 Verifying attestations