Markdown Exporter

Markdown Exporter is published as “Selection Markdown Exporter”. It turns files and folders picked in the VS Code Explorer (or Cursor, Windsurf and VSCodium) into a single, structured Markdown export, ready to paste into an LLM context window, attach to an issue or archive as documentation.

Curation happens in the editor: packing a whole repository is the fallback, not the main workflow.

What it does

• Two commands, one pipeline. Copy as Markdown puts the export on the clipboard; Export to Markdown writes a timestamped file (FULL_CODE_YYYY-MM-DD_HH-mm-ss.md) into the workspace root. Both are in the Explorer context menu and the Command Palette.
• Annotated file tree. Each export starts with a file tree that shows an approximate token count per file, measured with the o200k_base vocabulary, followed by one language-fenced section per file.
• Token warning. When the export finishes, a notification names the destination, the approximate total token cost and the number of redactions; it becomes a warning above markdownExport.tokenWarningThreshold (128,000 tokens by default).
• Layered ignore rules. Nested .gitignore files, then a root .exportignore, then the markdownExport.additionalIgnore setting, with the last match winning. A file picked explicitly is exported even if an ignore rule matches it.
• Stubs instead of noise. Binary, oversized (over 1 MB by default) and unreadable files keep their place in the tree, with a note saying why their content was omitted.
• Best-effort secret redaction. Values in .env files and recognisable credential formats (AWS, GitHub, Stripe, OpenAI and Anthropic keys, JWTs, database URL passwords) are replaced with [REDACTED: …] markers. It is a safety net, not a guarantee: secrets in other formats pass through.

The source code is MIT-licensed and written in TypeScript.