CLI Reference

The crackdown CLI is the primary entry point for linting Markdown files from the command line or CI pipelines.

crackdown lint

Lint one or more Markdown files.

crackdown lint <paths...> [options]

Arguments

Argument	Description
<paths...>	One or more file paths, directories, or - for stdin. Directories are walked recursively for *.md files.

Options

Flag	Default	Description
-f, --format <format>	pretty	Output format. Choices: pretty, json.
-c, --config <path>	(auto-discover)	Explicit path to a crackdown.config.ts file. Overrides directory-walk config discovery.
--fix	—	Apply all fixers from config.fixers and rewrite files in place.
--dry-run	—	With --fix: show what would change without writing to disk.

Exit codes

Code	Meaning
0	No violations at error severity. Warnings do not affect exit code.
1	One or more error-severity violations remain (including after --fix). Also returned on argument errors.

Examples

# Lint a single file
crackdown lint README.md

# Lint an entire directory
crackdown lint docs/

# Read from stdin
cat README.md | crackdown lint -

# Output machine-readable JSON for CI
crackdown lint docs/ --format json

# Use an explicit config
crackdown lint src/ --config ./configs/strict.crackdown.config.ts

# Auto-fix and preview changes without writing
crackdown lint docs/ --fix --dry-run

# Auto-fix and write in place
crackdown lint docs/ --fix

---

crackdown migrate

Migrate a markdownlint config file to a crackdown.config.ts.

crackdown migrate [config-path]

Arguments

Argument	Description
[config-path]	Path to a .markdownlintrc or .markdownlint.json file. If omitted, crackdown looks for .markdownlintrc then .markdownlint.json in the current directory.

Output

• Prints a report listing each rule as ✓ supported or ✗ unsupported.
• Writes a crackdown.config.ts file alongside the discovered config file with all supported rules pre-wired.

Exit codes

Code	Meaning
0	Migration completed (even if some rules are unsupported).
1	Config file not found or could not be parsed.

Example

crackdown migrate .markdownlintrc

Output:

Analyzing /project/.markdownlintrc...

Supported rules (will be migrated):
  ✓ MD009  →  md009Rule from @crackdown/core  (No trailing spaces)
  ✓ MD010  →  md010Rule from @crackdown/core  (No hard tabs)
  ✓ MD013  →  md013Rule from @crackdown/compat-markdownlint  (Line length)
  ✓ MD041  →  md041Rule from @crackdown/compat-markdownlint  (First line heading)
  ✓ MD047  →  md047Rule from @crackdown/compat-markdownlint  (Files should end with a single newline)

Unsupported rules (require manual attention):
  ✗ MD003  →  no crackdown equivalent yet

Migration complete: 5 rules migrated, 1 rule requires manual attention.
Generated: /project/crackdown.config.ts

18 markdownlint rules are supported in total. Run crackdown migrate with any .markdownlintrc to see the full report for your config.

---

crackdown lsp

Start the crackdown Language Server over stdio.

crackdown lsp

This command is intended for use by editor integrations. It starts the @crackdown/lsp server and communicates via the LSP protocol over stdin/stdout.

Editor configuration examples:

Neovim (via nvim-lspconfig):

require('lspconfig').crackdown.setup({
  cmd = { 'crackdown', 'lsp' },
  filetypes = { 'markdown' },
})

Zed (settings.json):

{
  "lsp": {
    "crackdown": {
      "initialization_options": {}
    }
  }
}