Strip Frontmatter

Standard approach for removing YAML frontmatter before sending content to GitHub.

The Problem

YAML frontmatter contains internal metadata that should not appear in GitHub issues:

• status, created, updated fields
• Internal references and IDs
• Local file paths

The Solution

Use sed to strip frontmatter from any markdown file:

# Strip frontmatter (everything between first two --- lines)
sed '1,/^---$/d; 1,/^---$/d' input.md > output.md

This removes:

1. The opening --- line
2. All YAML content
3. The closing --- line

When to Strip Frontmatter

Always strip frontmatter when:

• Creating GitHub issues from markdown files
• Posting file content as comments
• Displaying content to external users
• Syncing to any external system

Examples

Creating an issue from a file

# Bad - includes frontmatter
gh issue create --body-file task.md

# Good - strips frontmatter
sed '1,/^---$/d; 1,/^---$/d' task.md > /tmp/clean.md
gh issue create --body-file /tmp/clean.md

Posting a comment

# Strip frontmatter before posting
sed '1,/^---$/d; 1,/^---$/d' progress.md > /tmp/comment.md
gh issue comment 123 --body-file /tmp/comment.md

In a loop

for file in *.md; do
  # Strip frontmatter from each file
  sed '1,/^---$/d; 1,/^---$/d' "$file" > "/tmp/$(basename $file)"
  # Use the clean version
done

Alternative Approaches

If sed is not available or you need more control:

# Using awk
awk 'BEGIN{fm=0} /^---$/{fm++; next} fm==2{print}' input.md > output.md

# Using grep with line numbers
grep -n "^---$" input.md | head -2 | tail -1 | cut -d: -f1 | xargs -I {} tail -n +$(({}+1)) input.md

Important Notes

• Always test with a sample file first
• Keep original files intact
• Use temporary files for cleaned content
• Some files may not have frontmatter - the command handles this gracefully