#16848 f732f3c Thanks @Princesseuh! - Adds a new markdown.processor configuration option, allowing you to choose an alternative Markdown processor.

Websites with many Markdown/MDX files tend to be slow to build because the unified ecosystem (e.g., remark, rehype) is slow to process. This feature introduces the ability to replace this part of the build pipeline with another processor.

The default processor is unified(). This means that existing configurations remain unchanged and your remark/rehype plugins continue to work.

  // astro.config.mjs
  import { defineConfig } from 'astro/config';
  import { unified } from '@astrojs/markdown-remark';
  import remarkToc from 'remark-toc';

  export default defineConfig({
    markdown: {
      processor: unified({
        remarkPlugins: [remarkToc],
      }),
    },
  });

In addition to this new configuration option, Astro provides a new alternative processor based on Rust: Sätteri. You can choose to use it now by installing @astrojs/markdown-satteri, importing the satteri() processor, and adapting your existing configuration:

  // astro.config.mjs
  import { defineConfig } from 'astro/config';
  import { satteri } from '@astrojs/markdown-satteri';

  export default defineConfig({
    markdown: {
      processor: satteri({
        features: { directive: true },
      }),
    },
  });

This processor does not support the remark and rehype plugins. This means you may need to convert them to MDAST or HAST plugins to retain your current functionality.

The existing top-level markdown.remarkPlugins, markdown.rehypePlugins, markdown.remarkRehype, markdown.gfm, and markdown.smartypants options still work, but are now deprecated and will be removed in a future major update. The matching remarkPlugins, rehypePlugins, and remarkRehype options on the MDX integration are also deprecated for the same reason. To anticipate their removal, move them onto unified({...}) (or your preferred plugin processor) :

  // astro.config.mjs
  import { defineConfig } from 'astro/config';
  import remarkToc from 'remark-toc';
  import rehypeSlug from 'rehype-slug';
  + import { unified } from '@astrojs/markdown-remark';

  export default defineConfig({
    markdown: {
  +    processor: unified({
  +      remarkPlugins: [remarkToc],
  +      rehypePlugins: [rehypeSlug],
  +      remarkRehype: true,
  +      gfm: true,
  +      smartypants: true,
  +    }),
  -    remarkPlugins: [remarkToc],
  -    rehypePlugins: [rehypeSlug],
  -    remarkRehype: true,
  -    gfm: true,
  -    smartypants: true,
    },
  });

For more information on enabling and using this feature in your project, see our Markdown guide. To give feedback on this new Rust processor, see the Native Markdown / MDX parsing and processing RFC.

Minor Changes

#16848 f732f3c Thanks @Princesseuh! - Adds support for using @astrojs/markdown-satteri to parse .mdx files.

  // astro.config.mjs
  import { defineConfig } from 'astro/config';
  import mdx from '@astrojs/mdx';
  import { satteri } from '@astrojs/markdown-satteri';

  export default defineConfig({
    markdown: {
      processor: satteri({
        features: { directive: true },
      }),
    },
    integrations: [mdx()],
  });

Note that the recmaPlugins option is not supported when using Sätteri as your MDX processor. If you would like to use Sätteri for Markdown files, but still use Unified for MDX, you can pass a different Markdown processor to the MDX integration:

  // astro.config.mjs
  import { defineConfig } from 'astro/config';
  import mdx from '@astrojs/mdx';
  import { satteri } from '@astrojs/markdown-satteri';
  import { unified } from '@astrojs/markdown-remark';
  import myPlugin from './my-recma-plugin.js';

  export default defineConfig({
    markdown: {
      processor: satteri({
        features: { directive: true },
      }),
    },
    integrations: [
      mdx({
        recmaPlugins: [myPlugin],
        processor: unified(),
      }),
    ],
  });

Patch Changes

Updated dependencies [f732f3c, f732f3c, f732f3c]:
- @astrojs/internal-helpers@0.10.0
- @astrojs/markdown-remark@7.2.0
- @astrojs/markdown-satteri@0.2.0