Azure App Service launches public preview of Markdown for Agents

Microsoft has launched a public preview of Markdown for Agents, a feature for Azure App Service that converts HTML responses into Markdown before they reach an AI model. The service is available now for Windows-based apps in all public Azure regions; Linux support is promised later this year.

Browsers need HTML with scripts, styles, and markup; AI agents generally do not. When a client requests a page with the Accept: text/markdown header, App Service strips script and style content and returns headings, paragraphs, links, lists, images, emphasis, and code as Markdown. Converted responses include the headers Content-Type: text/markdown; charset=utf-8 and x-markdown-source: easy-markdown, allowing clients to confirm that the response is genuine Markdown.

Microsoft reports internal testing across more than 637,000 pages showed a median reduction in response size of 97 percent compared with the source HTML, with a median conversion time of 2 milliseconds. Results vary by page and content. Some pages that cannot be safely converted return their original HTML instead, so clients are advised to check the response headers before processing a body as Markdown.

The feature is tied to existing App Service infrastructure rather than a separate service. It requires an App Service plan in the Basic tier or higher and works with existing authentication, authorization, and network access controls; no additional authentication setup is needed for the conversion itself.

Enabling the preview currently requires configuration through the REST API, an ARM/Bicep template, or the Azure CLI using az rest. The setting is properties.aiIntegration.markdown.enabled, set to true, using API version 2026-03-15. Dedicated Azure CLI commands and portal support are planned for a later update. To disable the feature, the same PATCH request is sent with enabled set to false.

The 97 percent median reduction in payload is relevant to agent workloads, where token usage and transmission size matter. The preview has limitations: it is Windows-only for now, setup requires raw API calls, and the fallback behavior means callers must handle either Markdown or untouched HTML depending on the page. The Accept: text/markdown header makes conversion opt-in per request, keeping it from interfering with ordinary browser traffic.

Linux support is expected before general availability, and Microsoft says dedicated CLI and portal experiences are in progress. Until then, using the preview means integrating a REST API setup step and being prepared for two possible response formats.