Markdown for Agents

Why Markdown matters for agents

Feeding raw HTML to an AI is costly and imprecise. A simple heading ## About Us costs roughly 3 tokens in Markdown; its HTML equivalent — <h2 class="section-title">About Us</h2> — burns 12 to 15 tokens, and that's before accounting for <nav>, <footer>, scripts, and tracking pixels that inflate every real web page with zero semantic value.

Concrete example: The Cloudflare blog post announcing this feature takes 16,180 tokens in HTML and 3,150 tokens converted to Markdown — an 80% reduction.

Markdown has become the de facto format for AI systems. Its explicit structure is ideal for LLM processing: headings create clear sections, bold and italics signal emphasis, code blocks are unambiguous. The problem is that the web is built in HTML, not Markdown, and the conversion process wastes computation, adds latency, and may not reflect how content creators intend their material to be used.

Cloudflare Markdown for Agents (February 2026)

Cloudflare launched Markdown for Agents in February 2026: a feature that automatically converts HTML to Markdown at the CDN level, in real time, using HTTP content negotiation.

When an AI agent requests a page from a Cloudflare-protected site with the feature enabled, it can declare its preference for Markdown in the Accept header. Cloudflare intercepts the request, fetches the HTML from the origin, converts it to Markdown, and returns it to the agent — with no changes needed to your server.

How it works

AI Agent → Accept: text/markdown → Cloudflare Edge
                                        ↓
                               Fetch HTML from origin
                                        ↓
                               Convert to Markdown
                                        ↓
AI Agent ← text/markdown response ←────┘

Usage example

curl:

curl https://yourdomain.com/your-page \
  -H "Accept: text/markdown"

TypeScript (Cloudflare Workers):

const response = await fetch("https://yourdomain.com/your-page", {
  headers: {
    Accept: "text/markdown, text/html",
  },
});

const tokenCount = response.headers.get("x-markdown-tokens");
const markdown = await response.text();

Response headers

The Markdown response includes two notable headers:

Header	Value	Description
Content-Type	text/markdown; charset=utf-8	Response format
x-markdown-tokens	725 (example)	Estimated token count — useful for chunking strategy
Vary	accept	Indicates the response varies by Accept header
Content-Signal	ai-train=yes, search=yes, ai-input=yes	Content Signals policy

Enabling on Cloudflare

1. Log in to the Cloudflare Dashboard
2. Select your account, then your zone
3. In Quick Actions, toggle Markdown for Agents to enable
4. Available in Beta at no cost for Pro, Business, and Enterprise plans (as of February 2026)

Content Signals integration

Markdown for Agents responses automatically include the Content-Signal header, signaling that content can be used for AI training, search, and AI input. This is part of the Content Signals framework — see the dedicated Content Signals doc for details.

Who is already sending Accept: text/markdown?

As of early 2026, major AI agents already send these headers:

• Claude Code (Anthropic)
• OpenCode
• Most OpenAI browsing agents

Cloudflare Radar now tracks the distribution of content types returned to AI crawlers, including Markdown responses, via the AI Insights page.

Alternative conversion solutions

If Cloudflare Markdown for Agents is not available for your setup:

Solution	Description
Cloudflare Browser Rendering /markdown API	Renders a dynamic page in a real browser, then converts to Markdown
Cloudflare Workers AI AI.toMarkdown()	Supports multiple document types (HTML, PDF, DOCX, etc.)
Serve a static /page.md alongside /page	Your server returns Markdown for Accept: text/markdown requests
Manual llms.txt	A simplified Markdown summary of your site (see llms.txt)

Implementing content negotiation yourself

If you manage your own server (Node.js, Python, Go, etc.), you can implement Accept: text/markdown negotiation:

// Next.js App Router example
export async function GET(request: Request) {
  const accept = request.headers.get("accept") ?? "";

  if (accept.includes("text/markdown")) {
    const markdown = await getPageMarkdown(); // your own conversion
    return new Response(markdown, {
      headers: {
        "Content-Type": "text/markdown; charset=utf-8",
        "Vary": "accept",
        "Content-Signal": "ai-train=yes, search=yes, ai-input=yes",
      },
    });
  }

  // Default HTML response
  return new Response(await getPageHtml(), {
    headers: { "Content-Type": "text/html; charset=utf-8" },
  });
}

Key takeaways

• Markdown reduces token usage by 60–80% compared to HTML
• Content negotiation via Accept: text/markdown is becoming a standard
• Cloudflare Markdown for Agents enables this with zero server changes
• The x-markdown-tokens header helps agents manage context window limits
• Always accompany Markdown responses with Content Signals headers