@ngrok/remark-mdx-no-paragraph-wrap

Remark plugin that prevents MDX from wrapping JSX component children in <p> tags.

Why

MDX automatically wraps multiline content inside JSX components in <p> tags. For prose content this is great, but it causes invalid or unexpected nesting when using custom components like headers, cards, or layout wrappers:

const PageHeader = ({ children, id }) => <h1 id={id}>{children}</h1>;

<PageHeader id="philosophy">Philosophy</PageHeader>

MDX compiles this into:

<h1 id="philosophy">
	<p>Philosophy</p>
</h1>

That <p> inside <h1> is invalid HTML — it breaks styling, violates nesting rules, and causes hydration mismatches.

What

This remark plugin automatically strips paragraph nodes from inside all MDX JSX elements at the mdast (Markdown AST) level — before they are ever converted to HTML. No sentinel attribute or manual annotation is needed.

<PageHeader id="philosophy">Philosophy</PageHeader>

Compiles to:

<h1 id="philosophy">Philosophy</h1>

No <p> wrapper. All JSX elements are handled automatically.

Installation

package manager	command
npm	npm install -DE @ngrok/remark-mdx-no-paragraph-wrap
pnpm	pnpm add -DE @ngrok/remark-mdx-no-paragraph-wrap
bun	bun add -DE @ngrok/remark-mdx-no-paragraph-wrap
yarn	yarn add -DE @ngrok/remark-mdx-no-paragraph-wrap

Configuration

With @mdx-js/rollup (Vite, Rollup)

import mdx from "@mdx-js/rollup";
import { remarkMdxNoParagraphWrap } from "@ngrok/remark-mdx-no-paragraph-wrap";

export default {
	plugins: [
		mdx({
			remarkPlugins: [remarkMdxNoParagraphWrap],
		}),
	],
};

With @mdx-js/mdx (compile API)

import { compile } from "@mdx-js/mdx";
import { remarkMdxNoParagraphWrap } from "@ngrok/remark-mdx-no-paragraph-wrap";

const result = await compile(mdxSource, {
	remarkPlugins: [remarkMdxNoParagraphWrap],
});

How it works

The plugin operates at the mdast (Markdown AST) level, running as a remark transform before MDX converts to HTML (hast).

1. Walk the tree — uses unist-util-visit to traverse all nodes.
2. Find JSX elements — looks for mdxJsxFlowElement and mdxJsxTextElement nodes.
3. Unwrap paragraphs — recursively walks each JSX element's children, replacing any paragraph nodes with their own children (flattening them).

The unwrapping is recursive, so it handles nested structures correctly — paragraph nodes at any depth within JSX components are removed. Normal markdown prose outside JSX elements is unaffected.

Explicit <p> tags written in JSX (e.g., <p className="custom">text</p>) are not affected — MDX parses them as JSX element nodes, not mdast paragraph nodes, so they pass through untouched.

API

remarkMdxNoParagraphWrap()

Returns a remark transformer function. No options are needed — all MDX JSX elements are processed automatically.

License

MIT