mdformat breaks Hugo shortcodes by escaping `<`

[jamesbraza]

Describe the bug

context

Running mdformat on a Markdown file with a Hugo shortcode.

expectation

I expected mdformat to not break the shortcode.

bug

Instead mdformat is breaking the shortcode by escaping < to \<.

problem

This breaks the shortcode for Hugo users.

Relevant Hugo comment: https://github.com/executablebooks/mdformat/issues/112#issuecomment-1148935498

Reproduce the bug

{{< youtube -dJolYw8tnk >}}

That links to this YouTube video. mdformat corrects this to

{{\< youtube -dJolYw8tnk >}}

List your environment

mdformat==0.7.16
mdformat-frontmatter==2.0.1

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[Oliver-Habersetzer]

I agree this can be annoying. Also "[" and "]" are escaped - so I can't use this for Obsidian. I might make a PR so we're able to configure this behavior.

[BartKeulen]

I just want to add another case. I am using mkdocs with PyMarkdown Extension Snippets; useful for embedding content directly in your documentation pages.

A document is included using the following syntax:

--8<-- "filename.ext"

mdformat changes it to:

--8\<-- "filename.ext"

The behavior does not happen inside a code block, the following code is not changed:

\```yaml
--8<-- "filename.yml"
\```

(had to add the escape characters to display it kind of correctly, lol).

[ALizarazoTellez]

GitHub blocks highlights are escaped too: https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/16925

Changes:

> [!NOTE]
> Test

With:

> \[!NOTE\] Test

And changes:

> **Note**
> This is a note

With:

> **Note** This is a note

[PythonFZ]

Any updates on this?

[mmcdermott]

It would be really nice to have support for turning off this escape option. Is there any progress on this? I've also added an issue on snippets to support this via a plugin, but it'd be great to have more control in mdformat directly.