Existing CommonMarker 0.x installations can now adopt the RDoc 8 and reStructuredText fixes without upgrading their parser.

What changed

• I restored the native CommonMarker 0.x rendering API, including its original options, validation errors, and extension limits.
• I retained the existing CommonMarker 2.x adapter. Parser-specific rendering differences remain intentional.
• I added a legacy-parser CI job and real-parser regression tests in Restore legacy CommonMarker compatibility for 6.1.1.

The RDoc 8 formatter and reStructuredText anchor fixes from the withdrawn releases remain included.

Compatibility

CommonMarker remains optional. Consumers can retain their existing parser dependency.

The gem requires Ruby 3.3 or later and rdoc < 9. The legacy CommonMarker 0.23.12 gem itself requires Ruby below 4.0; the legacy CI job uses Ruby 3.4.

Versions 6.1.0 and 7.0.0 remain withdrawn. Their historical tags remain unchanged.

Validation

The complete 71-test suite passed five fresh-Codespace profiles across both parser families, RDoc 7.2/8.1, and an unchanged public legacy fork. Each profile retained 100% measured line and branch coverage.

The installed gem passed four parser/RDoc profiles. All 15 legacy output/error cases matched the published 6.0.0 gem with the same unchanged parser.

Merged-master CI passed all five jobs.

Withdrawn: legacy CommonMarker incompatibility

Do not adopt 6.1.0 with CommonMarker 0.x. I reproduced a NameError because the renderer calls the 2.x-only Commonmarker.to_html API.

I'm withdrawing this release and preparing a compatibility fix as 6.1.1. That fix is not published yet.

The v6.1.0 tag remains unchanged for traceability. Existing installations are not modified by withdrawal.

See the release list for the corrective release status. The earlier 7.0.0 release is also withdrawn.

Historical changes

The original 6.1.0 payload was identical to 7.0.0, including its CommonMarker compatibility changes. Changing the version number did not restore compatibility with CommonMarker 0.x.

CommonMarker changes

• Require commonmarker 2.x when using the CommonMarker renderer #2059.
• Accept VALIDATE_UTF8, LIBERAL_HTML_TAG, TABLE_PREFER_STYLE_ATTRIBUTES, and STRIKETHROUGH_DOUBLE_TILDE without applying them #2059.
• Preserve soft line breaks with NOBREAKS instead of converting them to spaces #2059.
• Apply HARDBREAKS and NOBREAKS in their supplied order; the last flag wins, replacing the old HARDBREAKS precedence #2059.

Other changes

• Support RDoc 8 formatter initialization and declare rdoc < 9 as a runtime dependency #2109, #2104.
• Restore reStructuredText section and table-of-contents anchors with docutils 0.18 and later #2081, #2087.

Compare the original changes since 6.0.0.

Withdrawn

I withdrew 7.0.0 from RubyGems. Its replacement, version 6.1.0, is also being withdrawn because it fails with CommonMarker 0.x.

The v7.0.0 tag remains unchanged for traceability. Existing downloads cannot be recalled. Yanking the gem can prevent fresh installations pinned to 7.0.0.

A compatible 6.1.1 patch is being prepared and is not published yet. See the release list for its status.

Historical release changes

Version 7.0.0 included a CommonMarker compatibility change, RDoc 8 support, and reStructuredText anchor fixes. Ruby 3.3 or later is still required.

Breaking

• Require commonmarker 2.x when using the CommonMarker renderer; upgrade existing commonmarker 0.x installations #2059.
• Accept VALIDATE_UTF8, LIBERAL_HTML_TAG, TABLE_PREFER_STYLE_ATTRIBUTES, and STRIKETHROUGH_DOUBLE_TILDE without applying them #2059.
• Preserve soft line breaks with NOBREAKS instead of converting them to spaces #2059.
• Apply HARDBREAKS and NOBREAKS in their supplied order; the last flag wins, replacing the old HARDBREAKS precedence #2059.

Bug Fixes

• Support RDoc 8 formatter initialization and declare rdoc < 9 as a runtime dependency #2109, #2104.
• Restore reStructuredText section and table-of-contents anchors with docutils 0.18 and later #2081, #2087.

Development

• Update development dependencies to commonmarker 2.8.2, html-pipeline 3.2, minitest 6, and activesupport 8.1.
• Require 100% measured line and branch coverage and load gem metadata without loading renderers #2072.

Compare the original changes since 6.0.0.

What's Changed

• chore: add dependabot and update github actions by @jmeridth in #1817
• Create stale.yml by @kenyonj in #1821
• chore: use sha instead of tag on stale workflow by @jmeridth in #1822
• chore(deps): bump rexml from 3.3.0 to 3.3.2 in the bundler group by @dependabot[bot] in #1839
• fix: ensure rubygems url is using https by @jmeridth in #1854
• chore(deps): bump rexml from 3.3.2 to 3.3.3 in the bundler group by @dependabot[bot] in #1848
• fix: add explicit permissions to ci github action by @jmeridth in #1855
• chore(deps): bump the dependencies group across 1 directory with 2 updates by @dependabot[bot] in #1868
• chore(deps): bump rexml from 3.3.3 to 3.3.6 in the bundler group by @dependabot[bot] in #1863
• Make sure all anchors are created for RST links by @felixfontein in #1536
• chore: add .venv/venv to .gitignore and update README with local dev info by @jmeridth in #1872
• Textile language link now leads to something completely different - replace the link with the current official one by @TAbdiukov in #1703
• chore(deps): bump ruby/setup-ruby from 1.190.0 to 1.191.0 in the dependencies group by @dependabot[bot] in #1873
• spelling: exclude by @jsoref in #1479
• chore(deps): bump ruby/setup-ruby from 1.191.0 to 1.193.0 in the dependencies group by @dependabot[bot] in #1880
• chore(deps): bump the dependencies group with 2 updates by @dependabot[bot] in #1882
• chore(deps): bump rexml from 3.3.6 to 3.3.9 in the bundler group by @dependabot[bot] in #1891
• chore(deps): bump the dependencies group across 1 directory with 4 updates by @dependabot[bot] in #1895
• chore(deps): bump the dependencies group across 1 directory with 6 updates by @dependabot[bot] in #1896
• fix: stale issue/pr message by @jmeridth in #1894
• chore(deps): bump ruby/setup-ruby from 1.199.0 to 1.202.0 in the dependencies group by @dependabot[bot] in #1899
• chore: add keep label to mark issues/prs from being marked as stale by @jmeridth in #1902
• fix: switch from shas to tags for immutable actions by @jmeridth in #1903
• chore(deps): bump the dependencies group across 1 directory with 4 updates by @dependabot[bot] in #1936
• chore(deps): bump the dependencies group with 5 updates by @dependabot[bot] in #1937
• chore(deps): bump the dependencies group with 3 updates by @dependabot[bot] in #1945
• chore(deps): bump cgi from 0.4.1 to 0.4.2 in the bundler group by @dependabot[bot] in #1941
• chore(deps): bump activesupport from 7.1.5 to 7.1.5.1 by @dependabot[bot] in #1938
• chore(deps): bump rdoc from 6.13.0 to 6.13.1 in the dependencies group by @dependabot[bot] in #1943
• chore(deps): bump github-linguist from 7.30.0 to 9.1.0 by @dependabot[bot] in #1944
• Bump nokogiri to 1.18, require at least Ruby 3.1 by @maxbeizer in #1947
• chore(deps): bump nokogiri from 1.18.7 to 1.18.8 in the bundler group by @dependabot[bot] in #1955
• chore(deps): bump nokogiri from 1.18.8 to 1.18.9 in the bundler group by @dependabot[bot] in #1981
• chore(deps): bump rexml from 3.4.1 to 3.4.2 in the bundler group across 1 directory by @dependabot[bot] in #1993
• fix(deps): bump nokogiri to >= 1.19.1 to fix GHSA-wx95-c6cv-8532 by @zkoppert in #2031
• chore(deps): bump the dependencies group across 1 directory with 5 updates by @dependabot[bot] in #2017
• chore(deps): bump ruby/setup-ruby from 1.229.0 to 1.270.0 in the dependencies group across 1 directory by @dependabot[bot] in #2014
• chore(deps): bump actions/checkout from 4.2.2 to 6.0.2 by @dependabot[bot] in #2035
• chore(deps): bump actions/cache from 4.2.3 to 5.0.3 by @dependabot[bot] in #2036
• chore(deps): bump actions/stale from 9.1.0 to 10.2.0 by @dependabot[bot] in #2034
• chore(deps): bump actions/setup-python from 5.5.0 to 6.2.0 by @dependabot[bot] in #2033
• chore(deps): bump ruby/setup-ruby from 1.290.0 to 1.293.0 in the dependencies group by @dependabot[bot] in #2032
• fix(deps): bump nokogiri to 1.19.2 and activesupport to 7.2.3.1 by @zkoppert in #2039
• chore(deps): bump the dependencies group with 2 updates by @dependabot[bot] in #2040
• fix: remediate supply chain security findings by @zkoppert in #2047
• chore(deps): bump the dependencies group across 1 directory with 2 updates by @dependabot[bot] in #2046
• fix: resolve supply chain security code scanning alerts by @zkoppert in #2048
• fix: use HTTPS for cpanminus download in CI by @zkoppert in #2050
• chore: bump minimum Ruby to 3.3 and add Ruby 4.0 to CI matrix by @zkoppert in #2051
• chore(deps): bump ruby/setup-ruby from 1.305.0 to 1.306.0 in the dependencies group by @dependabot[bot] in #2055
• release: v6.0.0 by @zkoppert in #2052

New Contributors

• @jmeridth made their first contribution in #1817
• @dependabot[bot] made their first contribution in #1839
• @felixfontein made their first contribution in #1536
• @TAbdiukov made their first contribution in #1703
• @maxbeizer made their first contribution in #1947
• @zkoppert made their first contribution in #2031

Full Changelog: v5.0.1...v6.0.0

What's Changed

• Update activesupport to 7.1.3.4 by @kenyonj in #1816

Full Changelog: v5.0.0...v5.0.1

What's Changed

• Add markdown support for .mdx files by @ctmayn in #1730
• Update nokogiri, nokogiri-diff, rdoc, drop support for Ruby < 3 by @kenyonj in #1814

New Contributors

• @ctmayn made their first contribution in #1730
• @kenyonj made their first contribution in #1814

Full Changelog: v4.0.2...v5.0.0

• Expose options in #render_s #1249
• Upgrade to Asciidoctor 2.0.x #1264

• Temporarily remove support for POD6 #1248

• Add support for POD6 #1173

• Remove linguist-detected RMarkdown files from the Markdown renderer #1237