How to Remove Markdown Frontmatter Programmatically?

how-to-remove-markdown-frontmatter-programmatically

Today I learned how to strip out YAML frontmatter (--- … ---) from Markdown files using either Python or a shell script.

✼ Python approach

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def remove_frontmatter(md_content):
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  if md_content.startswith("---"):
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    # Split the Markdown content into three parts
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    # parts[0] = "" (before first ---)
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    # parts[1] = YAML frontmatter
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    # parts[2] = rest of the markdown
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    parts = md_content.split("---", 2)
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    if len(parts) > 2:
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      return parts[2].lstrip("\n")
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  return md_content

✼ Shell script approach

#!/bin/sh

if [ -f "$file" ] && head -n1 "$file" | grep -q '^---$'; then
  sed '1,/^---$/d' "$file" > "$file.tmp" && mv "$file.tmp" "$file"
fi

Key takeaway: Whether in Python or shell, the idea is the same—detect if the file starts with ---, then strip out everything up to the next ---.