# Enable Task Lists in Markdown

**URL:** <https://talk.observablehq.com/t/enable-task-lists-in-markdown/720>\
**Category:** Feedback\
**Created:** [May 5, 2018, 1:31pm UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/enable-task-lists-in-markdown/720 "2018-05-05T13:31:42Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![aaronkyle](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.observablehq.com/aaronkyle/32/8106_2.png) [@aaronkyle](https://talk.observablehq.com/u/aaronkyle)\
**Post date:** [May 5, 2018, 1:31pm UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/enable-task-lists-in-markdown/720/1 "2018-05-05T13:31:42Z")

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Hi Observable Team!

Perhaps another small change that might be useful and interesting.

Just tried adding a task list in a notebook and found it not to render:

```
- [] Chore 1
- [x] Chore 2
- [x] Chore 3
- [] Chore 4
- [] Chore 5

```

Any thoughts on extending Observable’s default Markdown?

Here’s GitHub’s announcement from when they added this feature:

> **[Task lists in all markdown documents](https://github.blog/news-insights/product-news/task-lists-in-all-markdown-documents/)**
>
> Task lists in issues, comments, and pull request descriptions are incredibly useful for project coordination and keeping track of important items. Starting today, we are adding read-only task lists to…

Observable is beautiful, elegant, and amazing - and your team is extremely caring and helpful! Thank you so much for you making this resource and opening it to the world!

Sincerely,

Aaron

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**Author:** ![tom](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.observablehq.com/tom/32/2262_2.png) [@tom](https://talk.observablehq.com/u/tom)\
**Post date:** [May 7, 2018, 7:24pm UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/enable-task-lists-in-markdown/720/2 "2018-05-07T19:24:33Z")

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Hey Aaron!

That’s a neat idea - currently it is _technically possible but pretty inconvenient_ to support task lists: here’s an example:

> **[Bonus Markdown flavor 🍔](https://observablehq.com/@tmcw/bonus-markdown-flavor)**
>
> Install / Use it in your notebook: Put into a cell this: import {mdPlus} from "@tmcw/bonus-markdown-flavor" and then use mdPlus instead of md Helper Functions and Imports

Our default Markdown parser (what you get when you use the `md` method) is [marked, which is still working on their GFM compliance](https://github.com/markedjs/marked/issues/1211).

There’s also, well - ideally if we have checkboxes, they’re checkable 🙂 Which means supporting something like data storage or self-modifying cells in the notebook, which will be very cool if it happens.

-Tom

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![aaronkyle](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.observablehq.com/aaronkyle/32/8106_2.png) [@aaronkyle](https://talk.observablehq.com/u/aaronkyle)\
**Post date:** [May 7, 2018, 9:15pm UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/enable-task-lists-in-markdown/720/3 "2018-05-07T21:15:16Z")

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Cool! Thanks for the immediate work-around. 🙂 It would indeed be very cool to have data-storage / self-modifying notebook cells!

Thanks for all your amazing work on this platform!