marked-rs

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  logo and tagline

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  architecture diagram

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  benchmark comparision

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  codex and gpt 5.6 terra usage

Inspiration

During an OpenAI livestream, the developers mentioned that they love seeing language migration projects. That inspired us to take on the challenge of reimagining a widely used Markdown parser in Rust, using Codex to accelerate the migration.

What it does

marked-rs is a high-performance Rust implementation of a Markdown parser. It supports the most common Markdown syntax while targeting WebAssembly and Node.js, demonstrating how AI-assisted language migration can improve performance without sacrificing developer experience.

Repository: https://github.com/shreya50/marked

Why marked-rs

marked-rs demonstrates how mature JavaScript tooling can be migrated to Rust for improved performance, memory safety, and interoperability with Node.js and WebAssembly, providing a practical blueprint for modernizing existing software incrementally.

How we built it

We built the project using OpenAI Codex with GPT-5.6 Terra (Medium) as our AI pair programmer. Codex helped us understand the original architecture, translate JavaScript logic into idiomatic Rust, write tests, benchmark performance, and iterate quickly throughout the migration.

Challenges we ran into

The biggest challenge was finding a project that struck the right balance: ambitious enough to stand out among thousands of hackathon participants, yet realistic enough to complete within the hackathon timeframe. We also had to learn Rust concepts and validate that the migrated implementation behaved correctly.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

As someone without prior Rust experience, building a working Rust implementation felt incredibly rewarding. This project showed us how AI-assisted development can lower the barrier to contributing to unfamiliar ecosystems while still producing high-quality, well-tested software.

What we learned

• Using OpenAI Codex effectively for large migration tasks
• Prompt engineering for iterative software development
• Rust fundamentals and project structure
• Writing tests for correctness
• Benchmarking and measuring performance

What's next for marked-rs

We've completed our initial roadmap—hooray! 🎉

Our next goal is to improve CommonMark compatibility, expand feature coverage, optimize performance further, and welcome community contributors. We'll make the repository public after the hackathon concludes so others can explore, use, and contribute to the project.

Built With

• codex
• rust