Markdown Link Prefix

Author: BarCar · Repository: github.com/barcar/markdown-link-prefix

A Python-Markdown extension that expands prefixed link shorthand into full URLs. Write [text](youtube:VIDEO_ID) or [KB](snkb:KB123); when rendered, they become normal links using URL templates you define in a YAML file or config. All prefixes come from link_prefixes.yaml (or prefixes_file) and/or the prefixes option—nothing is hard-coded. Works with Zensical, MkDocs, or any tool that uses Python-Markdown.

Features

• Prefixed links: [text](prefix:id) → [text](https://.../id) via a URL template with {id}.
• All from config or file: define prefixes in prefixes_file (YAML) and/or prefixes; if the file is missing or empty and no config is given, no prefixes are defined.
• Optional link titles: [text](prefix:id "title") is supported.

Installation

pip install markdown-link-prefix

Requires: markdown>=3.4. For loading from a YAML file: pip install "markdown-link-prefix[yaml]" (PyYAML).

Quick example

import markdown
from markdown_link_prefix import LinkPrefixExtension

text = "[Watch](youtube:dQw4w9WgXcQ) and [KB](snkb:KB0012345)"
md = markdown.Markdown(extensions=[
    LinkPrefixExtension(prefixes_file="docs/link_prefixes.yaml", project_root=".")
])
html = md.convert(text)  # links expanded from the YAML templates

In Zensical or MkDocs, add link_prefix to your Markdown extensions and set prefixes_file (and optionally prefixes). See the documentation for configuration, usage, and examples.

Documentation

Online: Documentation (GitHub Pages).

To build the docs locally:

pip install -e ".[docs]"
zensical serve

(The Changelog page may 404 locally—it is generated from root CHANGELOG.md in CI only.)

License

MIT License. See LICENSE.