Markdown in table text column with the API

1

Hey everyone! First time here, I’m trying to add Markdown formatted content to a table using the Node JS API. Right now, this formatted text doesn’t get detected by Coda and isn’t rendered using Markdown.

Anyone know of a workaround that could allow me to insert Markdown formatted content into a table using the API? Thanks in advance!

2

I’m sure you’ve seen this but just in case.

Coda it seems doesn’t support Markdown proper, but uses markdown syntax to transform text styles.

Not sure if that’s the ultimate issue in this case, but worth sharing

3

Haha yep, saw that one already, but thank you! I suppose it hasn’t been added in yet and I’ll have to work around lack of markdown support for now.

4

I was able to pull rich text from a “Canvas” type column in a table, including a link, from the Coda API when using valueFormat=rich in the query.

curl "https://coda.io/apis/v1/docs/<docID>/tables/<tableID>/rows/<rowID>?valueFormat=rich" \
     -H 'Authorization: Bearer <authID>'

However, when I try to update the same column in the same row, I cannot get the same text that came out of the API to be accepted into the API. Here’s what I tried…

curl -X "PUT" "https://coda.io/apis/v1/docs/<docID>/tables/<tableID>/rows/<rowID>" \
     -H 'Authorization: Bearer <authID>' \
     -H 'Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8' \
     -d $'{
  "row": {
    "cells": [
      {
        "value": "Hi Bob. This is [Bob](https://eric.clst.org).",
        "column": "<columnID>"
      }
    ]
  }
}'

It seems like a basic principle of API design should be that you can put in what you get out. Otherwise, even simple “backup” scripts cannot work. Note, it made not difference if I used the disableParsing parameter for the query.

It would be really helpful if Coda fixed this. Perhaps something like a parseMarkdown parameter could be added to the update API so that we could opt into a behavior that includes Markdown parsing, just as we can now opt into the 'disableParsing` behavior.

Note, this post has been turned into a suggestion. If you agree, please visit the suggestion and upvote it. Thanks!

5

This is a real issue and a blocker for me for utilizing Coda. I am managing my Business Requirements via Coda but need the ability to interact via the API to build out new requirements, groom requirements and ultimately output requirements for my implementation team and client. The canvas is a location that is of key importance and the use of formatting, images, grids is mandatory. I am running the entire process via my Claude code implementation which allows and affords me the luxury of mass updates, incremental updates based on decisions and general management capabilities. I have 100’s of requirements which equates out to 1000’s of features. Managing these w/o AI would become an exhausting venture.

I must say, I do love coda and use it daily to track my general os and ops, but now I must explore other tools which provide more features and functions from the world of AI that can link and manage more environments w/o the friction of limited API functionality.