What is GitHub Flavored Markdown?
James Austin
Updated on March 08, 2026
What is GitHub Flavored Markdown?
1.1What is GitHub Flavored Markdown? GitHub Flavored Markdown, often shortened as GFM, is the dialect of Markdown that is currently supported for user content on GitHub.com and GitHub
What is Markdown text format?
Markdown is a plain text format for writing structured documents, based on conventions for indicating formatting in email and usenet posts. Although this spec doesn’t mandate any particular treatment of the info string, the first word is typically used to specify the language of the code block.
What is GFM Markdown?
GitHub Flavored Markdown, often shortened as GFM, is the dialect of Markdown that is currently supported for user content on GitHub.com and GitHub Enterprise. This formal specification, based on the CommonMark Spec, defines the syntax and semantics of this dialect. GFM is a strict superset of CommonMark.
Is there a cheat sheet for Markdown?
Markdown Cheatsheet. This is intended as a quick reference and showcase. For more complete info, see John Gruber’s original spec and the Github-flavored Markdown info page. Note that there is also a Cheatsheet specific to Markdown Here if that’s what you’re looking for. You can also check out more Markdown tools.
Does GitHub Markdown support relative links to files?
The relative link to text.md in subsubtext.md might look like this: GitHub could make this a lot better with minimal work. Here is a work-around. As of January 31, 2013 Github markdown supports relative links to files. However, there are a few deficiencies that have been discussed in this comment thread.
How do I get GitHub to ignore Markdown formatting?
For a full list of available emoji and codes, check out the Emoji-Cheat-Sheet. You can create a new paragraph by leaving a blank line between lines of text. You can tell GitHub to ignore (or escape) Markdown formatting by using \\ before the Markdown character.
How do I create a new paragraph in GitHub with markdown?
You can create a new paragraph by leaving a blank line between lines of text. You can tell GitHub to ignore (or escape) Markdown formatting by using \\ before the Markdown character. Let’s rename \\*our-new-project\\* to \\*our-old-project\\*.