---
title: Fix Astro 7's False markdown.gfm Deprecation Warning
description: Fix Astro 7's false markdown.gfm and markdown.smartypants deprecation warning from the Container API, and the version that fixes it.
date: 2026-08-05T00:00:00.000Z
category: guides-fixes
tags: astro, mdx, container-api, bug-fix
---

## Quick Answer

Rendering MDX content through Astro 7's Container API could print: `[astro] markdown.gfm and markdown.smartypants are deprecated. Move them onto your processor instead...` even in a project that never set either option. It was a false positive, fixed in `astro@7.0.6`. Upgrade past that version and the warning stops on its own.

## Why the warning fires with no matching config

Astro validates `markdown.gfm` and `markdown.smartypants` against a project's config to print this deprecation warning only when a reader actually set one of them. The Container API's `AstroContainer.create()` and `createFromManifest()` methods broke that check. They passed Astro's internal `ASTRO_CONFIG_DEFAULTS`, which already sets `gfm: true` and `smartypants: true` as baseline defaults, straight into the same validation function normal builds use.

The validator can't tell a default value from a value a reader actually typed into `astro.config.mjs`. Every Container API render saw `gfm: true` and treated it as user-set, so the warning fired unconditionally. [Issue #17206](https://github.com/withastro/astro/issues/17206), opened 2026-06-26 against `astro@7.0.3`, reproduces this with the Container API rendering MDX content.

<Callout type="info" title="A real bug, not a hint to change your config">
  Nothing about this warning pointed at an actual problem. It fired identically
  whether a project set `gfm`/`smartypants` or left them untouched, which is
  exactly what made it confusing to debug: there was no config change that made
  it stop.
</Callout>

## Is this still a problem on Astro 7 today?

No. [PR #17261](https://github.com/withastro/astro/pull/17261) fixed it, merged 2026-07-01, shipped in `astro@7.0.6`. The fix strips `gfm` and `smartypants` out of the defaults object before it reaches the validator, so the Container API now validates a reader's raw config the same way a normal build already did.

```bash title="Container API render on astro@7.0.3 - 7.0.5"
[astro] `markdown.gfm` and `markdown.smartypants` are deprecated. Move them
onto your processor instead (e.g. `satteri({ features: { gfm: false,
smartPunctuation: false } })`, or `unified({ gfm: false, smartypants: false })`
from `@astrojs/markdown-remark`). Will be removed in a future major.
```

There's no config change to make on your end. Updating `astro` to `7.0.6` or later removes the false positive completely.

```bash title="fix: update past the patched version"
npm install astro@latest
```

## Confirmed version range

This site runs `astro@^7.1.3`, well past the `7.0.6` fix, and doesn't use the Container API anywhere in its own source, so it never hit this specific warning. If you're rendering MDX through `AstroContainer` and see this exact message on `astro@7.0.3` through `7.0.5`, it's this bug, not a real deprecation to act on. Anyone genuinely migrating `markdown.gfm`/`markdown.smartypants` off deprecated top-level keys should follow the [markdown.rehypePlugins deprecation fix](/guides-fixes/fix-astro-7-rehypeplugins-deprecation-warning) instead, which covers the real version of this migration.

Browse more fixes from this same upgrade in the [Guides & Fixes](/guides-fixes) archive.