@larvit/adf-codec

Lossless conversion between Atlassian Document Format (ADF), an extended markdown flavour, and an HTML dialect.

Status: pre-release — the markdown round-trip (adfToMarkdown, markdownToAdf); HTML not yet. Plan: todo.md. Decisions: AGENTS.md. The flavour's grammar: spec/flavour.md.

What it is for

Atlassian Cloud REST APIs hand out rich text — issue descriptions, comments, pages — as ADF, a ProseMirror-shaped JSON tree, and take it back the same way. No Atlassian endpoint converts it (pf-editor-service/convert is decommissioned, JRACLOUD-77436 open), and the npm ecosystem is one-directional and lossy. A consumer that shows a document and lets someone edit it needs both directions lossless — otherwise saving destroys the panels, mentions and attachments it could not represent.

The shape

npm install @larvit/adf-codec

import { markdownToAdf } from '@larvit/adf-codec'

const result = markdownToAdf('# Release notes\n\n:::panel info\nShipped on Tuesday.\n:::\n')
if (result.ok) {
  send(result.value)
} else {
  const { code, message, path, position } = result.error
  console.error(`${code} at line ${position.line}, ${path.map((step) => '/' + step).join('')}: ${message}`)
}

Pure functions, no I/O, no configuration. ADF is the hub: markdown↔HTML compose through it.

adfToMarkdown(doc: AdfDocument): Result<string>
markdownToAdf(markdown: string): Result<AdfDocument, ParseError>
isAdfDocument(v: unknown): v is AdfDocument

adfToHtml(doc: AdfDocument): Result<string>               // 0.3.0
htmlToAdf(html: string): Result<AdfDocument, ParseError>  // 0.3.0
markdownToHtml(markdown: string): Result<string>          // 0.3.0, via ADF
htmlToMarkdown(html: string): Result<string>              // 0.3.0, via ADF

Result<T> is { ok: true; value: T } | { ok: false; error: ConvertError } — nothing throws.

The errors

An ADF node type this version does not know is not an error: it is carried opaquely and restores unchanged (AGENTS.md §3).

ConvertError is { code, message, path, position? }. code is the exported ConvertErrorCode, stable across minors and safe to switch on exhaustively with no default; message is free text and may change in any release. A parse always names a position, so markdownToAdf returns ParseError and its position reads without a guard; an emit reads no source and carries path alone; one handler typed on ConvertError takes both, which is what the composed markdownToHtml and htmlToMarkdown hand back. path is the node's place from the document root, alternating 'content' and an index, so path.map((step) => '/' + step).join('') is a JSON Pointer at the node — the empty path being the document itself.

A call reports the first refusal in document order and stops, so a document with several surfaces them one per call. Every refusal is deterministic — there is no I/O anywhere — so a retry returns the identical error: fix the input, or set the document aside.

position is { line, offset } into the string passed in: line counted from 1, offset a UTF-16 code unit, a JavaScript string index rather than a codepoint or a byte offset. It points at or before the refusal — currently the start of the line the enclosing block begins on; a later minor may narrow that, never widen it.

Parsing — markdownToAdf, and htmlToAdf at 0.3.0:

| Code | Fires when | What you can do | | --- | --- | --- | | malformed-directive | a ::: block or :name[…] inline directive the grammar cannot read — an unclosed fence or [content], {attrs} out of order or duplicated, invalid JSON in an adf carry | write the spelling the message names, or escape the line — \::: for a block, \: for an inline one — to keep it literal text | | malformed-pipe-table | a pipe row that is no pipe table — a missing or ragged --- delimiter row, an alignment colon in it, or a row not opening with a pipe | open every row with a pipe and give the delimiter row the header's cell count; to keep the lines literal text instead, escape the leading pipe of every one — escaping a single row leaves the next to open a fresh table and fail the same way | | unknown-directive-name | a directive whose name is no node or mark this version spells | check the name in spec/flavour.md, or escape the colon; the spelling itself is well formed, so a later minor may give the name meaning | | unmappable-html | the markdown holds a raw HTML tag, comment or processing instruction | remove it or write it in the flavour — ADF holds no raw-HTML node, and the element mapping lands at 0.3.0 | | unmappable-image | an image sits inside other content, or carries a title | give the image a paragraph of its own and drop the title |

Emitting — adfToMarkdown, and adfToHtml at 0.3.0:

| Code | Fires when | What you can do | | --- | --- | --- | | not-an-adf-document | the value handed in is no ADF document — a missing or wrong type, a stray key, a node that is not a node | guard the boundary you receive JSON at with isAdfDocument; the message names the branch that refused | | unsupported-document-version | the document's version is not 1 | keep the ADF and pass the document over, or show it read-only; the version is the site's, not yours to change |

Either direction. The emitter's own refusals are in this group — a parse reaches them by asking it which CommonMark spelling a node takes — so the two rows above are not the measure of how often an emit refuses:

| Code | Fires when | What you can do | | --- | --- | --- | | unspellable-character | text or a code block holds a carriage return or a null character, which CommonMark rewrites wherever it sits | strip or replace the character; no escape carries it through the round-trip | | unspellable-line-start | a paragraph line begins with a code span whose backticks would read back as a code fence | put any text before the code span | | unspellable-link | a link href or title holds what no canonical escape spells — a backslash, a newline, a control character, an entity reference, an angle bracket beside a space | percent-encode the destination (%5C for the backslash, %26 for the & that opens the entity), or drop the title | | unspellable-whitespace | an emoji, mention or status holds a newline in the text its inline directive spells in the content slot | replace it with a space — an inline directive never spans lines | | unsupported-nesting-depth | blocks, marks, an attribute's JSON or a carried node's JSON nest past 500 levels | keep the ADF and pass the document over, or show it read-only; flatten the input where you are the one who wrote it | | unsupported-node-shape | a node carries an attribute, value, argument or body its type does not take — or markdown writes as a directive a node the flavour spells as CommonMark | write the shape the message names; spec/flavour.md lists every type's attributes and body |

The guarantees

• markdownToAdf(adfToMarkdown(doc)) equals doc — unknown node types included, carried opaquely (AGENTS.md §3).
• Plain CommonMark is valid input to markdownToAdf apart from the raw HTML below, with three carve-outs — literal text matching directive, pipe-table or strikethrough syntax is claimed (escapable — spec/flavour.md) — and one gap: a CommonMark image fits only as its own title-less paragraph; mid-text and titled images are error results. Converting back yields the library's canonical spelling, which round-trips byte-identically — where it converts back at all: a parse succeeding is no promise of that, so keep the source until the way back succeeds. [a](/a\b), <http://x?a=1&amp;b=2> and [a](/x
y) read cleanly and then refuse.
• Raw HTML in markdown input is an error result, never a silent drop — a tag, a comment and a processing instruction alike. ADF holds no raw-HTML node; the element mapping ships at 0.3.0.
• Not every document converts back: adfToMarkdown is partial on valid ADF — a text node holding a carriage return, a link destination or title no canonical escape spells, a paragraph line beginning with a code span whose backticks read back as a fence. Show the refusal and keep the document read-only; saving markdown you could not produce is the loss the round-trip exists to stop.
• The pipe table narrows GFM's twice: every row opens with a pipe, so GFM's bare form is an error result rather than the prose it reads as, and an alignment colon in the delimiter row is an error too — ADF holds no column alignment. The trailing pipe is canonical output, optional in input.
• Past that and ~~, no GFM: an autolink literal and a - [ ] marker stay text, and a checklist is the taskList directive.
• A document nested deeper than 500 levels is an error result, not a stack overflow.
• The emitted formats are semver surface (AGENTS.md §8).
• 0.3.0 — htmlToAdf(adfToHtml(doc)) equals doc; fidelity HTML cannot express rides data-* attributes. Foreign HTML maps a documented element set, an unmappable element is an error, and well-formed HTML only — no tag-soup recovery.

Who it is for

Personas, never named consumers (AGENTS.md §7):

• Viewer/editor app — shows a document, lets a human edit, posts back. Losslessness above all.
• Bot posting content — converts generated markdown to ADF; needs the CommonMark promise.
• Export/indexing tool — bulk ADF→markdown/HTML; needs readable output.
• LLM/agent pipeline — documents to a model as markdown, edits back; needs the round-trip and markdown legible to a reader that half-knows the flavour.

The package

ESM only, no runtime dependencies, public npmjs. Built JavaScript with .d.ts beside it. Pure ECMAScript at an ES2022 baseline, reaching for no host API; the test suite runs under Node, Deno and Bun, and a headless Firefox converts the corpus through the built entrypoint. Contract: AGENTS.md §5–6.