What the Markdown format is (and why we prefer it)
Markdown is plain text with light punctuation. An .md file is a text file: it opens anywhere, today and ten years from now.
The idea in one line
Markdown is ordinary text with a few conventional marks — # for headings, - for lists, **bold**. No proprietary software: what you write is what's in the file.
How it reads
# Skill title
A short description.
## Steps
- First step
- Second step
**Note:** mark [VERIFY] whatever needs checking.Even with no tool at all you read it as-is: the # and - don't get in the way.
Why we prefer it
- It's open and portable. An .md is pure text: you open it with any editor, copy it, share it, version it. It doesn't depend on an app that might disappear. (See Open format or closed vertical?)
- It's the standard for AI skills. The canonical form of a skill is a
SKILL.md: assistants that speak the Agent Skills standard (Claude and others) read it natively. - Humans and machines both read it. You grasp it at a glance and the AI interprets it with no conversions.
- It lasts. Plain text = no lock-in, no format that "breaks" when the program updates.
And if you prefer plain text?
From every card you can also download in .txt: same content, without thinking about Markdown punctuation. An .md and a .txt are both text files — the difference is only the extension and the fact that some tools show the .md already formatted.