AltF Flow recipe

Make a Markdown checklist from a list

A Markdown checklist is a list where each line starts with - [ ]. This recipe trims each line, drops blank lines, strips any existing bullet or number such as -, *, a bullet dot or 3), and adds - [ ] in front of every item. The output renders as clickable checkboxes in GitHub issues, many note apps and most Markdown editors.

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4 steps · runs in your browser · nothing uploaded

Pipeline

  1. Remove leading and trailing spaces from each line.

    8 → 8 lines

  2. Remove all

    8 → 7 lines (-1)

  3. Find: ^(?:[-*+\\u2022]|\\d+[.)])\\s*, Regular expression

    7 → 7 lines

  4. Prefix: - [ ]

    7 → 7 lines

8lines29words167chars

7lines45words194chars-1 lines vs input

The 4 steps in this recipe

  1. 1

    Trim every line

    Remove leading and trailing spaces from each line.

  2. 2

    Remove empty lines - Remove all

    Delete blank lines, or squeeze runs of blank lines down to one so paragraphs stay apart.

  3. 3

    Find and replace - Find: ^(?:[-*+\\u2022]|\\d+[.)])\\s*, Regular expression

    Replace text everywhere. Supports regular expressions with $1 back-references.

  4. 4

    Add prefix / suffix - Prefix: - [ ]

    Add text before and after every line, or around the whole result.

Change any option in the workspace above, switch a step off to compare, or add your own steps. Save it to reuse it, or share the recipe as a link.

Worked example

Before
Book the launch retro

- Update pricing page
* Write release notes
• Email beta testers
4) Check analytics events
  5. Post on social channels
Archive old landing page
After
- [ ] Book the launch retro
- [ ] Update pricing page
- [ ] Write release notes
- [ ] Email beta testers
- [ ] Check analytics events
- [ ] Post on social channels
- [ ] Archive old landing page

Why strip existing markers first

Lists copied from documents mix dashes, asterisks, bullet characters and numbers. Without the replace step you would get lines like - [ ] - Update pricing page. The pattern removes one leading marker and the space after it, and leaves lines without a marker alone, so mixed lists come out consistent.

Variations

  • Change the prefix to - [x] to mark everything as done.
  • Change the prefix to "- " for a plain bullet list, or use Number lines for a numbered one.
  • Put a heading above the list by adding Add prefix / suffix with Whole text and a prefix like "## Tasks" plus a line break.

Markdown checklist from a list: questions and answers

Where do Markdown checkboxes render?

GitHub and GitLab issues and pull requests, Obsidian and many other Markdown editors. Plain Markdown viewers may show the brackets as text.

Does it keep indentation for sub-tasks?

No. Trim every line removes indentation. Delete step 1 to keep it, but then indented markers will not be stripped.

Will it remove a number that is part of the task?

Only a number at the very start followed by . or ). A task like 2026 budget review would keep its number.

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Writers and editors

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Clean text pasted from WordStraighten smart quotes, dashes and ellipses, delete zero-width characters and soft hyphens, collapse spaces and tidy blank lines in pasted text.
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Strip HTML to plain textRemove tags, scripts and styles from pasted HTML, decode entities like & and  , trim lines and keep paragraph breaks as blank lines.
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See all 22 recipes

Every step you can add (41)

Clean up

  • Trim whitespace
  • Trim every line
  • Remove empty lines
  • Collapse repeated spaces
  • Remove line breaks
  • Strip HTML tags
  • Straighten smart quotes
  • Remove accents
  • Remove punctuation
  • Remove emoji
  • Remove non-ASCII characters

Change case

  • Change case
  • Make URL slugs

Lines

  • Sort lines
  • Remove duplicate lines
  • Keep only duplicated lines
  • Compare with another list
  • Count repeated lines
  • Reverse line order
  • Shuffle lines
  • Keep a range of lines
  • Truncate long lines
  • Wrap at a width
  • Split into lines
  • Join lines

Find and filter

  • Find and replace
  • Filter lines
  • Remove words or characters

Extract

  • Extract

Data and formats

  • Format JSON
  • Minify JSON
  • CSV to JSON
  • JSON to CSV
  • Lines to JSON array
  • JSON array to lines

Encode and decode

  • Encode or decode

Build output

  • Add prefix / suffix
  • Quote each line
  • Number lines
  • Apply a line template
  • Add timestamp
What each step does, with its options

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