Don't autolink URLs used as markdown link text

[shainaraskas]

Why

When a URL is used as both the visible text and the target of a markdown link — e.g. https://gist.github.com — the page renders two external-link icons. The custom bare-URL autolinker runs before the standard link parser, so it matches the URL inside the [...] text and produces a nested . The CSS rule that paints the external icon then fires on both anchors. Closes #3317.

Chose to do this through a code fix rather than fixing instances because sometimes the URL link text is the most accurate + making it a bare link is busywork + the problem is likely to recur. the most expedient fix is in the code

What

HtmxLinkInlineRenderer now walks the parent chain of each LinkInline it's about to write; if any ancestor is also a LinkInline, it skips the wrapping and just renders the children. The outer link keeps its target="_blank" + external icon; the inner autolinked URL becomes plain text inside it. One anchor, one icon, valid HTML.

Adds two regression tests covering the exact issue case and a URL embedded mid-text inside link text.

bad	good

Made with Cursor

[coderabbitai]

📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

This PR fixes a bug where URLs appearing inside Markdown link text were being separately autolinked, creating nested <a> elements and duplicate external link indicators. The fix adds early-return suppression logic to AutoLinkInlineParser.Match when the parser is inside an open [ link delimiter, supported by a helper method that detects this state by walking backwards through inline siblings. Two regression test cases verify the fix for URLs as complete link text and URLs with surrounding text.

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 4 | ❌ 1

❌ Failed checks (1 warning)

Check name	Status	Explanation	Resolution
Docstring Coverage	⚠️ Warning	Docstring coverage is 11.11% which is insufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%.	Write docstrings for the functions missing them to satisfy the coverage threshold.

✅ Passed checks (4 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Title check	✅ Passed	The title accurately describes the main change: preventing autolinks on URLs used as markdown link text.
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	The changes directly address issue #3317 by detecting when a URL is inside an open link delimiter and suppressing autolinking, preventing the double external-link icon issue.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	All changes are scoped to the autolink parsing issue. The modifications to AutoLinkInlineParser and the corresponding tests are directly related to fixing the nested anchor problem.
Description check	✅ Passed	The PR description clearly explains the issue (duplicate external-link icons from nested anchors), the root cause (autolinker runs before link parser), and the solution (suppress autolinking inside open link delimiters).

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✨ Finishing Touches

✨ Simplify code

• Create PR with simplified code
• Commit simplified code in branch double-external-icons

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