safe-markdown-react

Safe, GFM-friendly Markdown → React renderer with sanitation, link policy, and image allowlists.

Perfect for rendering AI / user-generated content without inviting XSS or layout chaos.

Features

• ✅ No raw HTML from Markdown (by default)
• ✅ Sanitized output via rehype-sanitize (strict schema)
• ✅ GFM support (tables, strikethrough, task lists)
• ✅ Link policy: adds rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" and target="_blank"
• ✅ Image allowlist: blocks images unless host is allowed
• ✅ Heading depth guard: cap headings to a max level (e.g., h1..h3 only)
• ✅ Override components: map tags to your React components
• ✅ TypeScript types, React 18+

Install

npm i safe-markdown-react
# peer deps: react >= 18

Usage

import { SafeMarkdown } from 'safe-markdown-react';

export default function Article({ content }: { content: string }) {
  return (
    <SafeMarkdown
      markdown={content}
      allowedImageHosts={['images.example.com', 'cdn.jsdelivr.net']}
      maxHeadingLevel={3}
      linkTarget="_blank"
    />
  );
}

With custom components

import { SafeMarkdown } from 'safe-markdown-react';

const components = {
  h2: (props) => <h2 className="text-2xl font-semibold" {...props} />,
  code: (props) => <code className="rounded bg-zinc-950/90 px-1 py-0.5" {...props} />,
};

<SafeMarkdown markdown={md} components={components} />;

API

<SafeMarkdown />

Props:

• markdown: string — the raw Markdown text
• allowedImageHosts?: string[] — host allowlist for <img src>. Defaults to [] (block external images).
• allowedSchemes?: string[] — URL schemes to permit in href/src. Defaults to ['http', 'https', 'mailto'].
• maxHeadingLevel?: 1|2|3|4|5|6 — cap headings to at most this level (default 3).
• linkRel?: string — rel attribute for links (default 'nofollow noopener noreferrer').
• linkTarget?: string — target for links (default '_blank').
• components?: Record<string, React.ComponentType<any>> — map element names to your components.

Security notes

• Raw HTML in Markdown is ignored. If you need it, you must opt-in and extend the sanitizer schema carefully.
• Links always get safe rel and target by default.
• Images are blocked unless you allow a host explicitly.
• Only standard schemes (http, https, mailto) are allowed by default.

License

MIT