markdown-harvest 0.1.4

A Rust crate designed to extract, clean, and convert web content from URLs found in text messages into clean Markdown format. Originally created as an auxiliary component for Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) solutions to process URLs submitted by users.
Documentation

📝 Markdown Harvest

Crates.io Documentation License: MIT Rust

A Rust crate designed to extract, clean, and convert web content from URLs found in text messages into clean Markdown format. Originally created as an auxiliary component for Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) solutions to process URLs submitted by users.

📋 Table of Contents

Overview

Markdown Harvest was initially developed as part of a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) system where users submit text containing URLs, and the system needs to extract meaningful content from those URLs for further analysis or processing. This crate handles the extraction, cleaning, and structuring of web content automatically.

🎯 Why Markdown Harvest?

  • 🚀 Built for AI/RAG Systems: Specifically designed for content preprocessing in AI workflows
  • 🧹 Smart Content Extraction: Removes ads, navigation, and irrelevant elements automatically
  • 📝 Markdown Output: Clean, structured Markdown perfect for LLM processing
  • 🔄 Batch Processing: Handle multiple URLs efficiently in a single operation
  • 🛡️ Robust Error Handling: Gracefully handles network issues and invalid URLs

Use Case Process Flow

graph LR
    A[User Input] --> B{Identifies URLs}
    B -->|Yes| C[Retrieves HTTP Content]
    C --> D[Processes & Extracts Data]
    D --> E[Augments Context]
    E --> F[Generates Response with Model]
    B -->|No| F
    F -->|Contextualized response| A

✨ Features

  • 🔍 URL Detection: Automatically identifies HTTP/HTTPS URLs in text using regex patterns
  • 🎯 Smart Content Extraction: Extracts only relevant content from HTML <body> elements
  • 📄 HTML to Markdown Conversion: Converts HTML content to clean, readable Markdown while preserving structure and removing unwanted elements
  • 🧹 Content Cleaning: Removes JavaScript, CSS, advertisements, and navigation elements
  • 🤖 Multi-Platform User Agents: Rotates between different browser user agents to avoid detection
  • ⚡ Configurable HTTP Options: Customizable timeout, redirect limits, and cookie management
  • 🏗️ Builder Pattern API: Fluent and intuitive configuration with HttpConfig::builder()
  • 🛡️ Error Handling: Graceful handling of network errors and invalid URLs
  • 📝 Clean Text Output: Normalizes whitespace and removes common non-content patterns
  • ⚡ Asynchronous Processing: High-performance async/await support for concurrent URL processing
  • 🔄 Callback Architecture: Flexible callback system for real-time result streaming
  • 🧪 Comprehensive Testing: 36+ unit tests with 100% API coverage including async functionality

🚀 Quick Start

use markdown_harvest::{MarkdownHarvester, HttpConfig};

fn main() {
    let text = "Check this out: https://example.com/article";
    let config = HttpConfig::default(); // Use default HTTP configuration
    let results = MarkdownHarvester::get_hyperlinks_content(text.to_string(), config);
    
    for (url, content) in results {
        println!("URL: {}\nContent: {}", url, content);
    }
}

📦 Installation

Add this to your Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
markdown-harvest = "0.1.4"

📚 Usage Examples

📝 Synchronous Processing (Traditional)

use markdown_harvest::{MarkdownHarvester, HttpConfig};

fn main() {
    let text = "Check out this article: https://example.com/article.html and this one too: https://news.site.com/story";
    
    // Use default configuration
    let config = HttpConfig::default();
    let results = MarkdownHarvester::get_hyperlinks_content(text.to_string(), config);
    
    for (url, content) in results {
        println!("URL: {}", url);
        println!("Markdown Content:\n{}", content);
        println!("---");
    }
}

⚡ Asynchronous Processing (High Performance)

use markdown_harvest::{MarkdownHarvester, HttpConfig};
use std::sync::{Arc, Mutex};

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
    let text = "Check out: https://example.com and https://httpbin.org/json";
    let config = HttpConfig::builder().timeout(30000).build();
    
    // Collect results in a thread-safe vector
    let results = Arc::new(Mutex::new(Vec::new()));
    let results_clone = results.clone();
    
    let callback = move |url: Option<String>, content: Option<String>| {
        let results = results_clone.clone();
        async move {
            if let (Some(url), Some(content)) = (url, content) {
                let mut results = results.lock().unwrap();
                results.push((url, content));
                println!("✅ Processed URL with {} characters", content.len());
            }
        }
    };
    
    MarkdownHarvester::get_hyperlinks_content_async(text.to_string(), config, callback).await?;
    
    let final_results = results.lock().unwrap();
    println!("📊 Total URLs processed: {}", final_results.len());
    
    Ok(())
}

🔄 Real-time Processing with Immediate Output

use markdown_harvest::{MarkdownHarvester, HttpConfig};

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
    let text = "Visit https://example.com for more info";
    let config = HttpConfig::default();
    
    // Process and display results immediately as they arrive
    let callback = |url: Option<String>, content: Option<String>| async move {
        match (url, content) {
            (Some(url), Some(content)) => {
                println!("🚀 Processed: {}", url);
                println!("📄 Content length: {} characters", content.len());
                // Save to database, send to API, etc.
            }
            (None, None) => {
                println!("ℹ️ No URLs found in the provided text");
            }
            _ => unreachable!(),
        }
    };
    
    MarkdownHarvester::get_hyperlinks_content_async(text.to_string(), config, callback).await?;
    
    Ok(())
}

💻 Interactive CLI Mode

The crate provides an interactive CLI mode for testing:

cargo run

Then enter text containing URLs when prompted.

🔧 Advanced HTTP Configuration

use markdown_harvest::{MarkdownHarvester, HttpConfig};

fn main() {
    let text = "Articles: https://site1.com and https://site2.com";
    
    // Custom HTTP configuration with Builder pattern
    let config = HttpConfig::builder()
        .timeout(10000)        // 10 second timeout
        .max_redirect(5)       // Allow up to 5 redirects
        .cookie_store(true)    // Enable cookie storage for sessions
        .build();
    
    let results = MarkdownHarvester::get_hyperlinks_content(text.to_string(), config);
    
    for (url, content) in results {
        println!("Processed: {}", url);
        println!("Content length: {} chars", content.len());
    }
}

🎯 Different Configuration Examples

use markdown_harvest::{MarkdownHarvester, HttpConfig};

// Quick timeout for fast responses only
let fast_config = HttpConfig::builder()
    .timeout(3000)  // 3 seconds
    .build();

// Conservative configuration for slow sites
let patient_config = HttpConfig::builder()
    .timeout(30000)     // 30 seconds
    .max_redirect(10)   // More redirects allowed
    .cookie_store(true) // Handle authentication
    .build();

// Use different configs for different scenarios
let urgent_text = "Breaking news: https://news-site.com/urgent";
let deep_text = "Research: https://academic-site.edu/paper";

let urgent_results = MarkdownHarvester::get_hyperlinks_content(urgent_text.to_string(), fast_config);
let research_results = MarkdownHarvester::get_hyperlinks_content(deep_text.to_string(), patient_config);

📖 API Documentation

Core Functions

Synchronous Processing

// Main function to extract content from URLs in text (blocking)
MarkdownHarvester::get_hyperlinks_content(text: String, http_config: HttpConfig) -> Vec<(String, String)>

Asynchronous Processing

// Async function for high-performance concurrent processing
MarkdownHarvester::get_hyperlinks_content_async<F, Fut>(
    text: String, 
    http_config: HttpConfig, 
    callback: F
) -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>>
where 
    F: Fn(Option<String>, Option<String>) -> Fut + Clone,
    Fut: Future<Output = ()>

HTTP Configuration

// HTTP configuration with Builder pattern
HttpConfig::default() -> HttpConfig
HttpConfig::builder() -> HttpConfigBuilder

HttpConfigBuilder::new() -> HttpConfigBuilder
HttpConfigBuilder::timeout(ms: u64) -> HttpConfigBuilder
HttpConfigBuilder::max_redirect(count: usize) -> HttpConfigBuilder
HttpConfigBuilder::cookie_store(enabled: bool) -> HttpConfigBuilder
HttpConfigBuilder::build() -> HttpConfig

Utility Functions

// User agent utilities
UserAgent::random() -> UserAgent
UserAgent::to_string(&self) -> String

When to Use Async vs Sync

Feature Synchronous Asynchronous
Processing Sequential - one URL at a time Parallel - all URLs concurrently
Results Returns after ALL URLs complete Streams results as EACH URL completes
Use Case Need all results before proceeding Real-time processing as URLs finish
Performance Slower for multiple URLs Faster for multiple URLs
Complexity Simple function call Requires tokio runtime + callbacks
Memory Usage Collects all results in Vec Streams results via callbacks
Error Handling Direct Result handling Callback-based error handling
Integration Easy to integrate Better for async/await codebases

🔧 HTTP Configuration Options

Option Type Default Description
timeout Option<u64> None Request timeout in milliseconds
max_redirect Option<usize> None Maximum number of redirects to follow
cookie_store bool false Enable cookie storage for session management

Supported Platforms & User Agents

The crate includes user agents for:

  • Windows: Chrome, Firefox, Edge
  • macOS: Chrome, Safari, Firefox
  • Linux: Chrome, Firefox
  • Android: Chrome, Firefox
  • iOS: Safari, Chrome

🏗️ Dependencies

  • reqwest - HTTP client with both blocking and async support
  • scraper - HTML parsing and CSS selector engine
  • html2md - Intelligent HTML to Markdown conversion
  • regex - URL detection and content filtering
  • rand - Random user agent selection
  • tokio - Async runtime for high-performance concurrent processing
  • futures - Async utilities and combinators

🤖 AI Integration Context

This crate was specifically designed to serve as a content extraction component in Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) workflows where:

  1. 👥 Users submit messages containing URLs alongside other text
  2. 🧠 AI systems need structured content from those URLs for analysis
  3. 📝 Clean, readable Markdown is required preserving essential content and structure while removing HTML markup, scripts, ads, and links
  4. 🔄 Multiple URLs need processing in batch operations
  5. 🛡️ Reliability is crucial with proper error handling and fallbacks

The extracted content can then be fed into language models, search systems, or other AI components for further processing.

🎯 Perfect for RAG Systems

  • Vector Database Integration: Clean Markdown is ideal for embedding generation
  • Token Optimization: Removes unnecessary content to reduce token usage
  • Batch Processing: Handle multiple URLs from user queries efficiently
  • Content Quality: Preserves semantic structure while removing noise

⚙️ Markdown Transformation Details

The crate performs intelligent HTML to Markdown conversion that preserves essential formatting while removing clutter:

✅ Preserved Elements

  • Headers: <h1> → # Header, <h2> → ## Header
  • Emphasis: <strong> → **bold**, <em> → *italic*
  • Lists: <ul><li> → - item, <ol><li> → 1. item
  • Blockquotes: <blockquote> → > quote text
  • Scientific names: <i>Bertholletia excelsa</i> → *Bertholletia excelsa*

❌ Removed Elements

  • Links: [text](url) → text (keeps text, removes URL)
  • Images: <img> tags completely removed
  • Media: <iframe>, <video>, <audio> elements stripped
  • Navigation: <nav>, <header>, <footer>, <aside> sections
  • Metadata: Author bylines, publication dates, tag lists
  • Advertisements: Elements with ad-related classes or IDs

🧹 Text Cleanup

  • Normalizes excessive whitespace and line breaks
  • Removes photo captions and image attribution text
  • Filters out navigation phrases ("click here", "read more")
  • Eliminates code blocks and technical markup
  • Preserves paragraph structure and readability

🔄 Content Processing Pipeline

graph TD
    A[🔍 Input Text] --> B{URL Detection}
    B -->|URLs Found| C[🌐 HTTP Request]
    B -->|No URLs| D[⚡ Return Empty]
    C --> E[📄 HTML Parsing]
    E --> F[✂️ Content Extraction]
    F --> G[🧹 Clean & Filter]
    G --> H[📝 Markdown Conversion]
    H --> I[🔧 Final Cleanup]
    I --> J[✅ Output]
  1. 🔍 Input: Raw text from user containing URLs
  2. 🎯 Detection: Regex-based URL extraction with punctuation cleanup
  3. 🌐 Fetching: HTTP requests with randomized user agents
  4. 📄 HTML Parsing: Document parsing with scraper crate
  5. ✂️ Body Extraction: Extracts only content from HTML <body> element
  6. 🚫 Media Removal: Strips images, iframes, videos, and other non-textual elements
  7. 🧹 Structure Cleaning: Removes scripts, styles, navigation, headers, footers, and ads
  8. 🎯 Content Selection: Focuses on relevant elements (articles, main content, headings, paragraphs)
  9. 📝 Markdown Conversion: Transforms cleaned HTML to structured Markdown using html2md
  10. 🔗 Link Processing: Converts [text](url) links to plain text, removes standalone URLs
  11. ✨ Format Preservation: Maintains headers, bold, italic, lists, and blockquotes
  12. 🔧 Final Cleanup: Removes metadata, navigation text, and excessive whitespace
  13. ✅ Output: Clean, readable Markdown content paired with source URLs

⚠️ Error Handling

The crate handles various error conditions gracefully:

  • 🌐 Network timeouts and connection errors
  • 🔗 Invalid or malformed URLs
  • 📄 Empty or missing content
  • 🚫 Server errors (404, 500, etc.)
  • 🛡️ Blocked requests or rate limiting

🔄 Migration from v0.1.2

⚠️ Breaking Change: v0.1.3 introduces a breaking change in the API.

Before (v0.1.2)

use markdown_harvest::MarkdownHarvester;

let text = "Check https://example.com";
let results = MarkdownHarvester::get_hyperlinks_content(text.to_string());

After (v0.1.3)

use markdown_harvest::{MarkdownHarvester, HttpConfig};

let text = "Check https://example.com";
let config = HttpConfig::default(); // Add this line
let results = MarkdownHarvester::get_hyperlinks_content(text.to_string(), config); // Add config parameter

Quick Migration Tips

  1. Import HttpConfig: Add HttpConfig to your use statement
  2. Create config: Use HttpConfig::default() for same behavior as before
  3. Pass config: Add the config as the second parameter to get_hyperlinks_content()

The change enables powerful new features like custom timeouts, redirect control, and cookie management while maintaining the same core functionality.

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Here's how to get started:

  1. 🍴 Fork the repository
  2. 🔧 Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
  3. 💾 Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add amazing feature')
  4. 📤 Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
  5. 🔀 Open a Pull Request

Development Setup

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/franciscotbjr/markdown-harvest
cd markdown-harvest

# Run tests
cargo test

# Run the interactive CLI
cargo run

# Format code
cargo fmt

# Check for issues
cargo clippy

📄 License

Licensed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for details.

📋 Changelog

v0.1.4 🚀 NEW: Async Processing

  • ⚡ Asynchronous Processing Support: Complete async/await implementation for high-performance concurrent URL processing
  • 🚀 Performance Improvements: Faster processing when handling multiple URLs simultaneously through parallel processing
  • 📚 Enhanced Examples: Updated main.rs with interactive examples showing both sync and async processing modes
  • 🧪 Async Test Suite: 8 new async unit tests covering all async methods (27→36 total tests)
  • 🔄 Callback Architecture: Flexible callback system supporting custom processing pipelines
  • 📖 Comprehensive Documentation: Complete documentation with 3 detailed async examples
  • ✅ Backward Compatible: No breaking changes - all existing sync code continues to work

v0.1.3 ⚠️ BREAKING CHANGES

  • 🏗️ HTTP Configuration with Builder Pattern: Complete HTTP configuration system
  • 💥 API Change: get_hyperlinks_content() now requires HttpConfig parameter
  • ⚡ New Features: Configurable timeout, redirects, and cookie management
  • 🧪 Testing: 17 new unit tests (10→27 total) with 100% API coverage
  • 📚 Enhanced Documentation: Updated examples and migration guide

v0.1.2

  • 🔧 Component Architecture: Separated responsibilities with HttpClient and ContentProcessor
  • 🎯 Facade Pattern: MarkdownHarvester as clean interface
  • 🧪 Unit Tests: Comprehensive testing for all components

v0.1.0

  • ✨ Initial release
  • 🔍 URL detection and content extraction
  • 🤖 Multi-platform user agent support
  • 🧹 Content cleaning and normalization
  • 💻 Interactive CLI mode