How to Remove Markdown Frontmatter Programmatically〡Hua-Ming Huang

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

def remove_frontmatter(md_content):
  if md_content.startswith("---"):
    parts = md_content.split("---", 2)
    if len(parts) > 2:
      return parts[2].lstrip("\n")
  return md_content

#!/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 ---.

The Python Approach

The Shell Script Approach