Skip to main content

Confirm

Are you sure?

C# · Code recipe

Convert a web page to Markdown in C#

Turn any URL into Markdown you can hand to a model, in .NET 8+ with HttpClient. Every program on this page runs as it stands — each one was run against a stub of the API before it was published.

By · Last updated: September 2026

TL;DR

To convert a web page to Markdown in C#, POST its URL to https://urlpipe.dev/markdown with sync set to true; the response body is the Markdown, read with ReadAsStringAsync. The page is rendered in real Chrome first, then converted by a deterministic walk over the DOM, not a model, for 1 credit a page.

Free plan, no credit card. 1,000 credits a month.

One POST to /markdown renders the page in real Chrome, then walks the rendered DOM and writes the main content as Markdown, with navigation, footers and boilerplate left out. No model is involved, so the same page gives the same Markdown every time, in about 20 ms after the page has loaded.

In C# the response is plain text, read with ReadAsStringAsync — there is no JSON envelope to unwrap. Measured on 33 pages, the output covered 87.2% of the text a visitor sees, and 11.0% of it was text the visitor never saw; the guide to Markdown for LLMs has the comparison.

Setup

Before you start

Nothing to add from NuGet: HttpClient and System.Text.Json are part of .NET. Each program below is a whole Program.cs for a console project.

Terminal
dotnet new console -o HtmlToMarkdown && cd HtmlToMarkdown
export URLPIPE_API_KEY="your_api_key"
# replace Program.cs with a program below, then:
dotnet run

The request

Print a page as Markdown

sync = true keeps the request open until the result is ready. PostAsJsonAsync serializes the anonymous object, and the property names go out as written, underscores included. HttpClient does not throw on a 4xx or 5xx, so check IsSuccessStatusCode. The body is the Markdown itself, so the string is the whole job.

Program.cs
using System.Net.Http.Headers;
using System.Net.Http.Json;

// A sync call can take up to 60 s; HttpClient's default gives up at 100.
using var client = new HttpClient { Timeout = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(90) };
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Authorization =
    new AuthenticationHeaderValue("Bearer", Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("URLPIPE_API_KEY"));

var response = await client.PostAsJsonAsync("https://urlpipe.dev/markdown",
    new { url = "https://example.com", sync = true });
var body = await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
if (!response.IsSuccessStatusCode)
{
    Console.Error.WriteLine($"URLpipe answered {(int)response.StatusCode}: {body}");
    return 1;
}

// Plain text: pipe it into a file, a chunker or a prompt.
Console.WriteLine(body);
return 0;

Run it: dotnet run

Async

The async variant: a token, a webhook and a poll

Leave out sync and the answer is a token, straight away. JsonNode reads one field without declaring a class for the response, and Task.Delay waits between polls without holding a thread.

Program.cs
using System.Net.Http.Headers;
using System.Net.Http.Json;
using System.Text.Json.Nodes;

const string Api = "https://urlpipe.dev";

using var client = new HttpClient { Timeout = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(30) };
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Authorization =
    new AuthenticationHeaderValue("Bearer", Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("URLPIPE_API_KEY"));

// No sync: the request is accepted at once and the work carries on without you.
var accepted = await client.PostAsJsonAsync($"{Api}/markdown", new
{
    url = "https://example.com",
    report_to = "https://your-app.com/webhooks/urlpipe",
    labels = new { customer = "acme" },
});
if (!accepted.IsSuccessStatusCode)
{
    Console.Error.WriteLine($"URLpipe answered {(int)accepted.StatusCode}: {await accepted.Content.ReadAsStringAsync()}");
    return 1;
}
var token = JsonNode.Parse(await accepted.Content.ReadAsStringAsync())!["token"]!.GetValue<string>();
Console.WriteLine($"Accepted {token}");

// The result is POSTed to report_to when it is ready. Polling by token is the
// other way to collect it: no endpoint needed, and a backup for the webhook.
var response = await client.GetAsync($"{Api}/result/{token}");
for (var attempt = 1; attempt < 60 && (int)response.StatusCode == 202; attempt++) // 202: still processing
{
    await Task.Delay(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(2));
    response = await client.GetAsync($"{Api}/result/{token}");
}

var body = await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
switch ((int)response.StatusCode)
{
    case 200:
        break;
    case 202:
        Console.Error.WriteLine("Still processing after two minutes; try the token again later.");
        return 1;
    case 422:
        Console.Error.WriteLine($"The analysis failed: {JsonNode.Parse(body)?["error"]?.GetValue<string>()}");
        return 1;
    case 410:
        Console.Error.WriteLine("The result is past the 30-day window; send the request again.");
        return 1;
    default:
        Console.Error.WriteLine($"URLpipe answered {(int)response.StatusCode}: {body}");
        return 1;
}

// Plain text: pipe it into a file, a chunker or a prompt.
Console.WriteLine(body);
return 0;

Run it: dotnet run

Errors

Handle errors and retries

A local function keeps the retry rules next to the call, and the exception type is declared after the top-level statements, where C# requires it. RetryAfter.Delta is the parsed Retry-After header, and a body that is not JSON (a 401 answers in plain text) leaves every field null.

Program.cs
using System.Net.Http.Headers;
using System.Net.Http.Json;
using System.Text.Json;
using System.Text.Json.Nodes;

using var client = new HttpClient { Timeout = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(90) };
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Authorization =
    new AuthenticationHeaderValue("Bearer", Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("URLPIPE_API_KEY"));

string body;
try
{
    body = await Urlpipe("/markdown", new { url = "https://example.com", sync = true });
}
catch (URLpipeException e)
{
    Console.Error.WriteLine($"URLpipe: {e.Message}");
    return 1;
}

// Plain text: pipe it into a file, a chunker or a prompt.
Console.WriteLine(body);
return 0;

// POST a sync request and return the result body; retry the two 429s that clear by themselves.
async Task<string> Urlpipe(string path, object payload, int attempts = 5)
{
    for (var attempt = 0; attempt < attempts; attempt++)
    {
        using var response = await client.PostAsJsonAsync($"https://urlpipe.dev{path}", payload);
        var text = await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
        var status = (int)response.StatusCode;
        if (status == 200) return text;
        if (status == 401) throw new URLpipeException("401: the API key is missing or wrong. Check URLPIPE_API_KEY.");

        JsonNode? error = null;
        try { error = JsonNode.Parse(text); } catch (JsonException) { } // not JSON: no fields
        var code = error?["error"]?.GetValue<string>() ?? "";
        var message = error?["message"]?.GetValue<string>();
        var detail = message is null ? code : $"{code}: {message}";

        if (status == 429 && code == "rate_limited")
            // Sending too fast: Retry-After says how long the window has left.
            await Task.Delay(response.Headers.RetryAfter?.Delta ?? TimeSpan.FromSeconds(1));
        else if (status == 429 && code == "concurrency_limit")
            // Every parallel slot on your plan is busy with your own requests.
            await Task.Delay(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(Math.Pow(2, attempt)));
        else if (status == 504)
            // Still running on our side; the token collects it from GET /result/:token.
            throw new URLpipeException($"504 processing_timeout: collect it later with token {error?["token"]?.GetValue<string>()}");
        else
            // 403 email_unverified, 422 (a bad parameter, or a page that would not load),
            // 429 quota_exceeded: sending the same request again gets the same answer.
            throw new URLpipeException($"{status}: {detail}");
    }
    throw new URLpipeException($"429: still refused after {attempts} attempts");
}

class URLpipeException(string message) : Exception(message) { }

Run it: dotnet run

Details

What to know about /markdown

  • It reads no CSS, so text hidden only by a stylesheet can end up in the Markdown.
  • Pages over 10 MB of HTML are refused with The page is too big to be processed.
  • page_options.remove_selectors drops elements before conversion when a site's chrome survives the boilerplate rules.
  • A repeat request inside max_age (7 days by default) is served from the cache and costs nothing.

Other languages

Convert a web page to Markdown in another language

More C#: every C# recipe

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Does the Markdown conversion use an LLM?
No. It is a deterministic walk over the rendered DOM, so it is fast, costs 1 credit a page, and gives the same output for the same page. Only /meta, /summarize and /keywords call a model.
Does it work on pages built with JavaScript?
Yes. The page is loaded in real Chrome and its scripts run before the DOM is read, so React, Vue and other client-rendered pages convert like static ones.
How do I keep the Markdown for later?
Write the body to a .md file, or rely on the cache: the same URL within max_age (7 days by default) is answered from storage for free, and any result can be fetched again by its token for 30 days.
Do I need an SDK to call URLpipe from C#?
No NuGet package: HttpClient and System.Text.Json are part of .NET, and the API is one POST per job.

Get a key and run it.

Free plan, no card. Paste your key into URLPIPE_API_KEY and every program on this page runs as it is.