About

Imported from joelhooks/joelclaw (skills/google-docs-md/SKILL.md). Install upstream with npx skills add joelhooks/joelclaw --skill google-docs-md. Copyright stays with the author.

Google Docs Markdown Export

Name: google-docs-md
Author: joelhooks

Google Docs natively supports markdown export via a URL parameter. This is the most reliable way to get markdown from a Google Doc — better than defuddle, jina, or any scraping tool.

URL Pattern

For any Google Doc URL like:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/{DOC_ID}/edit?tab=t.0

Replace everything after the document ID with export?format=md:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/{DOC_ID}/export?format=md

Extracting the Document ID

The DOC_ID is the long alphanumeric string between /d/ and the next /:

# From any Google Docs URL, extract the ID:
echo "https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mt8aYM88Jj5qkep1xYC5vj0wBlbX2u6gdxhf_puaiQI/edit?tab=t.0" \
  | grep -oP '(?<=/d/)[^/]+'
# → 1mt8aYM88Jj5qkep1xYC5vj0wBlbX2u6gdxhf_puaiQI

Fetching

# Public docs — no auth needed, follow the 307 redirect:
curl -L "https://docs.google.com/document/d/${DOC_ID}/export?format=md" -o output.md

# Private docs — needs OAuth bearer token:
curl -L "https://docs.google.com/document/d/${DOC_ID}/export?format=md" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ${TOKEN}" -o output.md

Important: The endpoint returns a 307 redirect. Always use curl -L (follow redirects) or equivalent.

Other Export Formats

The same pattern works for other formats:

export?format=pdf — PDF
export?format=docx — Word
export?format=txt — Plain text
export?format=html — HTML
export?format=epub — ePub

Batch Pattern

When you have a list of Google Doc URLs (e.g. extracted from Front emails):

# Extract doc IDs from a file of URLs
grep -oP '(?<=/d/)[^/]+' urls.txt | sort -u | while read id; do
  echo "Fetching $id..."
  curl -sL "https://docs.google.com/document/d/${id}/export?format=md" \
    -o "docs/${id}.md"
  sleep 1  # Be polite
done

When to Use

Always prefer this over defuddle/scraping for Google Docs
Works for public docs without any authentication
Native markdown quality is superior to any HTML→markdown conversion
Handles tables, formatting, links, images (as URLs) correctly

Limitations

Private docs require a valid OAuth token (use gog when available)
Very large docs may take a few seconds
Images are referenced as URLs, not embedded
Comments and suggestions are not included in the export

Use it

Copy one of these into your project. Installing also returns the manifest and these snippets.

yaml

targets:
  - https://api.opensmartroute.ai/api/v1/registry/joelhooks-joelclaw-google-docs-md/manifest   # or paste the manifest below

Manifest

An Open Capability Manifest: the router reads it to know what this does, what it costs and when to pick it.

joelhooks-joelclaw-google-docs-md.ocm.jsonjson

{
  "ocm": "1",
  "id": "joelhooks-joelclaw-google-docs-md",
  "kind": "skill",
  "name": "google-docs-md",
  "description": "Export Google Docs as clean markdown via native URL parameter. No auth needed for public docs. Use when fetching Google Doc content for vault ingestion, runbook building, or any doc-to-markdown pipeline.",
  "publisher": "joelhooks",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "capabilities": {
    "domains": [
      "general"
    ],
    "tags": [
      "skill-md",
      "google-docs",
      "markdown",
      "export",
      "content-extraction",
      "skills-sh"
    ],
    "languages": [
      "en"
    ]
  },
  "quality_prior": 0.6,
  "examples": [
    "Export Google Docs as clean markdown via native URL parameter. No auth needed for public docs. Use when fetching Google Doc content for vault ingestion, runbook building, or any doc-to-markdown pipeline."
  ],
  "primary": false,
  "metadata": {
    "source": {
      "provider": "skills.sh",
      "repository": "https://github.com/joelhooks/joelclaw",
      "path": "skills/google-docs-md/SKILL.md",
      "ref": "HEAD",
      "url": "https://github.com/joelhooks/joelclaw/blob/HEAD/skills/google-docs-md/SKILL.md",
      "key": "joelhooks/joelclaw/skills/google-docs-md/SKILL.md"
    }
  },
  "instructions": "# Google Docs Markdown Export\n\nGoogle Docs natively supports markdown export via a URL parameter. This is the most reliable way to get markdown from a Google Doc — better than defuddle, jina, or any scraping tool.\n\n## URL Pattern\n\nFor any Google Doc URL like:\n```\nhttps://docs.google.com/document/d/{DOC_ID}/edit?tab=t.0\n```\n\nReplace everything after the document ID with `export?format=md`:\n```\nhttps://docs.google.com/document/d/{DOC_ID}/export?format=md\n```\n\n## Extracting the Document ID\n\nThe DOC_ID is the long alphanumeric string between `/d/` and the next `/`:\n\n```bash\n# From any Google Docs ",
  "cost": {
    "context_tokens": 582
  }
}

Fetch it by URL: GET /api/v1/registry/joelhooks-joelclaw-google-docs-md/manifest?version=1.0.0

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