How to Create Links in Markdown

The inline form covers most needs, and it accepts an optional title in quotes after the URL — [docs](https://example.com "Opens the documentation") — which browsers show as a hover tooltip. Write meaningful link text: "see the install guide" beats "click here" for both readers and search engines. Links can carry emphasis too: **[bold link](https://example.com)** works by wrapping the entire link in the bold markers.

URLs containing parentheses are the classic breakage. A Wikipedia URL like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown_(language) ends the link at the first closing parenthesis, leaving "(language)" as stray text. Fix it by percent-encoding the parentheses (%28 and %29), escaping them with backslashes, or wrapping the URL in angle brackets: [Markdown](<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown_(language)>). Spaces in URLs must always be encoded as %20.

Reference links separate the URL from the prose: write [link text][ref] in the sentence and define [ref]: https://example.com anywhere else in the document (conventionally at the bottom). This keeps long paragraphs readable in source form and lets you reuse one URL many times — change the definition once and every reference updates. The shortcut form [ref] with a matching definition also works, using the reference name as the link text. Autolinks are the third form: wrap a bare URL in angle brackets (<https://example.com>) to make it clickable. GFM additionally auto-links bare URLs without brackets, but plain CommonMark does not, so angle brackets are the safe choice.

In repositories and wikis, prefer relative links for internal targets: [contributing guide](docs/CONTRIBUTING.md) survives forks, renames of the host domain, and branch switches, where an absolute github.com URL would silently point at the wrong fork. You can also link to heading anchors within a page using [section](#section-name) — see the headings reference for how anchor IDs are generated.