Github include md files in README.md? - github

Question

Is there a way in Github to include md files in for example the README.md?
# Headline
Text
[include](File:load_another_md_file_here.md)
It should not link to the file, it should load the contents from it, like PHP include / file_get_contents.

Answer 1

That does not seem to be possible, especially when considering github/markup#346 and github/markup#172.
No include directive is supported.

Answer 2

This is not the correct answer but a workaround for others who really want this.
It's possible to use Gulp and Gulp Concat to merge the files into one before they are sent to Github..

Answer 3

Since it is not possible I just ended up placing a link as
[MY-LINK](../../SOME-OTHER-README.MD)

Answer 4

migrate your readme to a different file then construct your actual README however you like as a github action
EDIT: Here's a demo that you can build off of. This repo has a single github action that runs a script that dynamically builds the README.md based on the contents of the repository (to build a site map for the repo in the form of a table of contents): https://github.com/dmarx/bench-warmers
the workflow config:
name: update-readme
on:
push:
branches: [ "main" ]
jobs:
build:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout#v3
- uses: actions/setup-python#v2
- name: Run the script
run: python scripts/update_readme.py
- name: Commit files
run: |
git config --local user.name "dmarx"
git add README.md
git commit -m "Updated TOC"
- name: Push changes
uses: ad-m/github-push-action#master
with:
github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
force: true
Here's the chunk of my update script that's relevant to you:
... # code that builds the object `toc_str`
# template readme
with open('README.stub') as f:
readme_stub = f.read()
# simple replacement, use whatever stand-in value is useful for you.
readme = readme_stub.replace('{TOC}',toc_str)
with open('README.md','w') as f:
f.write(readme)
Which assumes you have a file named README.stub which might look something like this:
# Title
some text
{TOC}
more text
Where {TOC} is the substitution target for our dynamic content.

Answer 5

Ruby gem markdown_helper implements include files for GitHub flavored markdown (GFM).
Disclosure: I wrote the gem.