markit-markdown-converter

Skill by ara.so — Daily 2026 Skills collection.

markit converts almost anything to markdown: PDFs, Word docs, PowerPoint, Excel, HTML, EPUB, Jupyter notebooks, RSS feeds, CSV, JSON, YAML, images (with EXIF + AI description), audio (with metadata + AI transcription), ZIP archives, URLs, Wikipedia pages, and source code files. It works as a CLI tool and as a TypeScript/Node.js library, supports pluggable converters, and integrates with OpenAI, Anthropic, and any OpenAI-compatible LLM API.

Installation

# Global CLI
npm install -g markit-ai

# Or as a project dependency
npm install markit-ai
# bun add markit-ai
# pnpm add markit-ai

CLI Quick Reference

# Convert a file
markit report.pdf
markit document.docx
markit slides.pptx
markit data.xlsx
markit notebook.ipynb

# Convert a URL
markit https://example.com/article
markit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown

# Convert media (requires LLM API key for AI features)
markit photo.jpg
markit recording.mp3
markit diagram.png -p "Describe the architecture and data flow"
markit receipt.jpg -p "List all line items with prices as a table"

# Output options
markit report.pdf -o report.md          # Write to file
markit report.pdf -q                    # Raw markdown only (great for piping)
markit report.pdf --json                # Structured JSON output

# Read from stdin
cat file.pdf | markit -

# Pipe output
markit report.pdf | pbcopy
markit data.xlsx -q | some-other-tool

# List supported formats
markit formats

# Configuration
markit init                              # Create .markit/config.json
markit config show                       # Show resolved config
markit config get llm.model
markit config set llm.provider anthropic
markit config set llm.model claude-haiku-4-5

# Plugins
markit plugin install npm:markit-plugin-dwg
markit plugin install git:github.com/user/markit-plugin-ocr
markit plugin install ./my-plugin.ts
markit plugin list
markit plugin remove dwg

# Agent integration
markit onboard                           # Adds usage instructions to CLAUDE.md

AI / LLM Configuration

Images and audio always get free metadata extraction. AI-powered description and transcription requires an API key.

# OpenAI (default)
export OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...
markit photo.jpg

# Anthropic
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...
markit config set llm.provider anthropic
markit photo.jpg

# OpenAI-compatible APIs (Ollama, Groq, Together, etc.)
markit config set llm.apiBase http://localhost:11434/v1
markit config set llm.model llama3.2-vision
markit photo.jpg

.markit/config.json (created by markit init):

{
  "llm": {
    "provider": "openai",
    "apiBase": "https://api.openai.com/v1",
    "model": "gpt-4.1-nano",
    "transcriptionModel": "gpt-4o-mini-transcribe"
  }
}

Environment variables always override config file values. Never store API keys in the config file — use env vars.