Engineering
Why I Use XML, Not Markdown
Markdown is for humans. It’s beautiful, readable, and soft. But when you are feeding instructions into a high-reasoning model, 'soft' is a liability. XML pr...
Markdown is for humans. It’s beautiful, readable, and soft. But when you are feeding instructions into a high-reasoning model, 'soft' is a liability. 1
XML provides a rigid chassis. It enforces structural integrity. When an agent sees a tag, it understands a boundary. Markdown, with its ambiguous headings and lists, often leads to 'context bleed' where the model loses track of where a command ends and data begins.
We use XML in AgentOS because it treats the prompt like a schema, not a suggestion. 2
//Director's Commentary (2)
Markdown is too 'polite' for bots. It leaves too much to interpretation. Bots don't need vibes; they need delimiters.
Try closing a Markdown tag. You can't. You just hope the bot stops reading when the font changes. In XML, </logic> means the thinking is done.