mdq Skill
mdq is a CLI tool for querying Markdown documents, analogous to how jq works with JSON.
Setup
Option 1: Homebrew (macOS/Linux)
brew install mdqOption 2: Download Binary from GitHub Releases
Latest release: v0.9.0
# macOS (Apple Silicon)
curl -L https://github.com/yshavit/mdq/releases/download/v0.9.0/mdq-macos-arm64.tar.gz | tar xz
sudo mv mdq /usr/local/bin/
# Linux x86_64
curl -L https://github.com/yshavit/mdq/releases/download/v0.9.0/mdq-linux-x64.tar.gz | tar xz
sudo mv mdq /usr/local/bin/
# Linux x86_64 (musl/static)
curl -L https://github.com/yshavit/mdq/releases/download/v0.9.0/mdq-linux-x64-musl.tar.gz | tar xz
sudo mv mdq /usr/local/bin/To get the latest release URL dynamically:
curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/yshavit/mdq/releases/latest \
| jq -r '.assets[] | select(.name | test("macos-arm64")) | .browser_download_url'Option 3: Docker
docker pull yshavit/mdq
docker run --rm -i yshavit/mdq '# heading' < file.mdVerify Installation
mdq --versionUsage
mdq [OPTIONS] <SELECTOR> [FILE]If FILE is omitted, reads from stdin.
Options
| Flag | Description |
|---|---|
-q | Quiet mode — no output, exit 0 if matches found (grep-like) |
--output json | Output results as JSON instead of Markdown |
Selector Syntax
Selectors mirror Markdown syntax. All text matching is case-insensitive by default.
Headings
mdq '# title text' file.md # any heading containing "title text"
mdq '## ' file.md # all h2 headings
mdq '# *' file.md # all headings (any level)Lists
mdq '- item text' file.md # unordered list items
mdq '1. item text' file.md # ordered list itemsTasks
mdq '- [ ] task' file.md # uncompleted tasks
mdq '- [x] task' file.md # completed tasks
mdq '- [?] task' file.md # any task (complete or not)Links and Images
mdq '[display](url)' file.md # links (match on display text or url)
mdq '' file.md # images
mdq '[](https://example.com)' file.md # links by URLBlock Quotes
mdq '> quote text' file.mdCode Blocks
mdq '```language code' file.md # fenced code blocks
mdq '``` ' file.md # all code blocksHTML Elements
mdq '</> div' file.md # HTML elements by tag nameParagraphs
mdq 'P: text' file.mdTables
mdq ':-: header :-: row' file.md # match by header and row content
mdq ':-: Status' file.md # tables with a "Status" headerFront Matter
mdq '+++yaml text' file.md # YAML front matter
mdq '+++toml text' file.md # TOML front matterText Matching
| Pattern | Behavior |
|---|---|
word | Unquoted — case-insensitive substring match |
"Word" / 'Word' | Quoted — case-sensitive substring match |
^prefix | Anchored to start |
suffix$ | Anchored to end |
/regex/ | Regular expression match |
!s/regex/replace/ | Regex replace in output |
* or omitted | Wildcard — matches anything |
Chaining Selectors (Pipe)
Use | to chain filters sequentially (output of each feeds the next):
mdq '# Installation | - ' file.md # list items under "Installation" heading
mdq '## * | - [x]' file.md # completed tasks under any h2Examples
# Extract all h2 headings from a README
mdq '## ' README.md
# Find all uncompleted tasks
mdq '- [ ]' TODO.md
# Get all links as JSON
mdq --output json '[]()' README.md
# Check if all tasks are complete (exit code 0 = none found = all done)
mdq -q '- [ ]' checklist.md && echo "All done!" || echo "Tasks remaining"
# Extract links under a specific section
mdq '# Resources | []()' README.md
# Find code blocks in bash
mdq '```bash' README.md
# Get table rows matching a value
mdq ':-: Status :-: done' report.md
# Pipe from stdin
cat file.md | mdq '# *'JSON Output
Use --output json to get structured output for programmatic use:
mdq --output json '- [ ]' file.md | jq '.[].text'
mdq --output json '[]()' README.md | jq '.[] | {text: .link_text, url: .url}'