About writing and formatting on GitHub

GitHub combines a syntax for formatting text called GitHub Flavored Markdown with a few unique writing features.

Who can use this feature?

Markdown can be used in the GitHub web interface.

In this article

Markdown is an easy-to-read, easy-to-write language for formatting plain text.

We've added some custom functionality to create GitHub Flavored Markdown, used to format prose and code across our site.

You can also interact with other users in pull requests and issues using features like @-mentions, issue and PR references, and emoji. For more information, see Basic writing and formatting syntax.

Text formatting toolbar

Every comment field on GitHub contains a text formatting toolbar, which allows you to format your text without learning Markdown syntax. In addition to Markdown formatting like bold and italic styles and creating headers, links, and lists, the toolbar includes GitHub-specific features such as @-mentions, task lists, and links to issues and pull requests.