` still yields one. Table cells are separated with spaces and image alternative text is kept. Normal HTML whitespace is collapsed; preformatted text preserves its internal whitespace. Leading and trailing newlines are trimmed. This replaces the older text mode's Markdown-converter output, which could include heading/list markers and backslash escapes, while keeping its blank-line paragraph separation. `markdown` keeps the converter's syntax-aware escaping, without blanket backslash removal. Ordinary prose such as `issue #133` and `C#` is unchanged. A paragraph containing `# literal heading` becomes `\# literal heading` in Markdown so it still renders as literal text, not an unintended heading; `text` returns `# literal heading`. Literal asterisks and backslashes likewise retain their meaning, while actual HTML emphasis and code retain formatting. Conversion remains best-effort and does not evaluate CSS visibility, execute scripts, or fetch external resources. This is content extraction, not a general HTML/Markdown security sanitizer. ## Resource and cancellation contract - The input must be a regular file and valid UTF-8. `IRONFLOW_MAX_FILE_BYTES` (default `52428800`, 50 MiB) bounds both its declared size and actual bytes read. On Unix and Windows, IronFlow also refuses to follow a final path-component symlink/reparse point; other platforms enforce the opened-handle regular-file check. - `IRONFLOW_MAX_EXTRACT_ITEMS` (default `250000`) is a cumulative structural budget for the call. For HTML it counts markup items, detected as `<` markers while scanning the input. - `IRONFLOW_MAX_EXTRACT_OUTPUT_BYTES` (default `52428800`, 50 MiB) bounds the complete serialized `NodeOutput`, including the configured content key and optional metadata object. This is a logical result limit, not a process-RSS limit and not the later `IRONFLOW_MAX_TASK_OUTPUT_BYTES` persistence limit. - File reading, structural inspection, tree filtering, plain-text rendering, metadata scanning, and result serialization run on a tracked blocking worker and check cancellation and the step/run deadline cooperatively. Third-party HTML parsing and Markdown conversion cannot be interrupted internally; IronFlow checks before and after them, and during its own filtering and plain-text traversal. The parsed tree and converter-produced Markdown are materialized before the extraction-output limit can inspect them, so that logical result limit does not cap the libraries' transient peak allocation. Task and run admission remain occupied until the physical worker stops. ## Example See [extract_html.lua](https://github.com/skitsanos/ironflow/blob/v1.20.0/examples/08-extraction/extract_html.lua) for a self-contained example that creates one temporary page, extracts both formats and title metadata, and removes the input. Its style/script/fallback content is excluded from both outputs. ```lua local flow = Flow.new("read_html_file") flow:step("extract", nodes.extract_html({ path = "/data/page.html", format = "markdown", output_key = "html_content", metadata_key = "html_meta" })) flow:step("done", nodes.log({ message = "Extracted HTML title: ${ctx.html_meta.title}" })):depends_on("extract") return flow ```