Story

Markdown started as a shorthand for HTML. Now it's the default format for documentation, note-taking, knowledge bases, and AI context.

What's interesting is how it keeps absorbing new capabilities without changing the format itself:

- Mermaid: diagrams from fenced code blocks - KaTeX/MathJax: math rendering from `$...$` syntax - Frontmatter: structured metadata via YAML blocks - MDX: React components embedded in markdown - Obsidian/Logseq: backlinks, canvas views, graph visualization — all from plain .md files

The pattern seems to be: the .md file stays human-readable plain text, but renderers get increasingly powerful. Same file, richer output.

This makes me wonder where this goes:

1. Does markdown keep evolving through renderer conventions until it becomes a de facto interactive document format? (The "HTML path" — HTML barely changed, but CSS/JS/browsers made it capable of anything.)

2. Does a new format emerge that can natively express interactivity, collapsible sections, embedded computations? Something between markdown and Jupyter notebooks?

3. Or does the answer involve a protocol/middleware layer — where .md files are the source, but some intermediate system (like a language server for documents) adds structure, validation, and interactivity on top?

I'm especially curious because of the AI angle. Plain .md files are the most AI-friendly knowledge format — any LLM can read, write, and search them with zero setup. A more complex format might gain expressiveness but lose this property.

What's your take? Is .md "good enough forever" with better renderers, or are we heading toward something new?