Markdown TOC Generator — GitHub-Anchor Table of Contents by API

Generate a correct, paste-ready table of contents for any markdown document — GitHub-compatible anchors, nested indentation, duplicate headings deduped — from raw markdown or a URL. Up to 50 documents per run, online, by API, or as an agent tool via Apify MCP.

Hand-maintaining a TOC drifts out of date the day someone renames a heading; naive generators break on the details (code fences containing #, setext === headings, links inside headings, two sections with the same name). This one handles all of those — and each behavior is asserted by our automated release test.

What you get

• toc — ready-to-paste markdown: nested - [Heading](#anchor) lines, indented by level
• outline — the same data structured: {level, text, slug} per heading
• headingCount, plus fetch metadata for URL inputs
• Correctness details: ATX (#) and setext (===/---) headings both parsed; fenced code blocks skipped; inline links/emphasis stripped from heading text; GitHub slug rules (unicode kept, punctuation dropped); duplicate anchors deduped setup, setup-1, ...
• minDepth/maxDepth — window the levels included (default 1-3)
• Fail-soft: an unfetchable URL never fails the run — it returns {ok: false, error} and is never charged.

Input

{ "url": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/apify/apify-sdk-js/master/README.md", "maxDepth": 3 }

Or raw text: { "markdown": "# Title\n## Section..." }. Bulk via urls array.

Output (real run, trimmed)

{
  "ok": true,
  "headingCount": 5,
  "toc": "- [Intro](#intro)\n- [Setext Title](#setext-title)\n  - [Setup](#setup)\n    - [Linked step](#linked-step)\n  - [Setup](#setup-1)",
  "outline": [
    { "level": 1, "text": "Intro", "slug": "intro" },
    { "level": 2, "text": "Setup", "slug": "setup" },
    { "level": 2, "text": "Setup", "slug": "setup-1" }
  ]
}

Pricing

$0.0008 per document parsed. No start fee. Unfetchable URLs are never charged.

No direct paid markdown-TOC incumbent was found on the store (2026-08-07 search across "markdown toc", "table of contents" — results are converters and crawlers). Pricing is cost-plus at ~5x measured run cost.

Honest limits

• Anchor slugs follow GitHub's rules; other renderers (GitLab, some SSGs) differ slightly on punctuation edge cases — the outline gives you text+level to re-slug for any target.
• URL inputs are fetched as plain text — point at RAW markdown (e.g. raw.githubusercontent.com), not an HTML-rendered page.
• The TOC is generated, not inserted — splice it into your document wherever you keep it.

FAQ

Do code blocks containing # break it? No — fenced blocks (``` and ~~~) are tracked and their contents ignored. Asserted in our release test.

What about two sections with the same name? Deduped exactly like GitHub: second ## Setup becomes #setup-1, so every TOC link lands on the right section.

Are setext headings (underlined with === or ---) supported? Yes, as h1/h2 respectively — plenty of older READMEs use them.

Can I generate TOCs for a whole docs repo? Yes — pass up to 50 raw-file URLs via urls; each document gets its own record.

Why did some rows come back ok: false? The URL 404'd or timed out. Recorded with the exact error, never charged.

Use from code or AI agents

curl -s "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/EliAI~markdown-toc-generator/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -X POST -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"url": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/your/repo/main/README.md"}'

Agents: connect Apify MCP and call the EliAI/markdown-toc-generator tool.

• Capability: generate GitHub-anchor TOC + structured outline from raw markdown or markdown URLs
• Required input: markdown (string) or url/urls
• Returns: one record per document; toc is paste-ready markdown, outline is structured
• Bounded: 50 documents per run, depth window 1-6; failures isolate per document
• Side effects: none