# @lexical/headless

> This package contains Headless helpers and functionality for Lexical.

Latest version **0.51.0** (published 2026-09-17) · MIT license · 0 weekly downloads

## Install

```sh
npm install @lexical/headless
pnpm add @lexical/headless
yarn add @lexical/headless
bun add @lexical/headless
```

## Health

**Score 70/100 (B)** — status: active.

Positive: has types; esm support; no vulnerabilities; has provenance; recently updated; high maintenance score.

Warnings: low downloads; pre 1.0.

## Facts

| | |
|---|---|
| Version | 0.51.0 |
| Published | 2026-09-17 |
| First published | 2022-05-09 |
| Weekly downloads | 0 |
| License | MIT |
| TypeScript types | bundled |
| Module format | ESM |
| Dependencies | 3 |
| Unpacked size | 20 KB |
| Known vulnerabilities | 0 |
| Install scripts | no |
| Provenance | attested (GitHub Actions) |
| Maintainers | fantactuka, zurfyx, acywatson, ipavlov001, trueadm, etrepum |
| Keywords | lexical, editor, rich-text, headless |

## Links

- npm: https://www.npmjs.com/package/@lexical/headless
- Repository: https://github.com/facebook/lexical
- npm.io page: https://npm.io/package/@lexical/headless

## Dependencies (3)

- [lexical](https://npm.io/package/lexical.md) 0.51.0
- [happy-dom](https://npm.io/package/happy-dom.md) ^20.9.0
- [@lexical/internal](https://npm.io/package/@lexical/internal.md) 0.51.0

## Alternatives

- [ext-list](https://npm.io/package/ext-list.md) — 6.3M weekly downloads
- [@lexical/selection](https://npm.io/package/@lexical/selection.md) — 3.8M weekly downloads
- [@lexical/text](https://npm.io/package/@lexical/text.md) — 3.6M weekly downloads
- [@lexical/clipboard](https://npm.io/package/@lexical/clipboard.md) — 3.0M weekly downloads
- [@tiptap/extension-mention](https://npm.io/package/@tiptap/extension-mention.md) — 3.0M weekly downloads

## Recent versions

- 0.51.0 (latest) — 2026-09-17
- 0.51.1-nightly.20260925.0 (nightly) — 2026-09-25
- 0.45.1-dev.0 (dev) — 2026-05-30
- 0.6.1-next.0 (next) — 2022-11-04
- 0.51.1-nightly.20260924.0 — 2026-09-24
- 0.51.1-nightly.20260923.0 — 2026-09-23
- 0.51.1-nightly.20260922.0 — 2026-09-22
- 0.51.1-nightly.20260921.0 — 2026-09-21
- 0.51.1-nightly.20260918.0 — 2026-09-18
- 0.50.1-nightly.20260917.0 — 2026-09-17
- 0.50.1-nightly.20260916.0 — 2026-09-16
- 0.50.1-nightly.20260915.0 — 2026-09-15
- 0.50.1-nightly.20260914.0 — 2026-09-14
- 0.50.1-nightly.20260911.0 — 2026-09-11
- 0.50.1-nightly.20260910.0 — 2026-09-10
- … 664 more at https://npm.io/package/@lexical/headless/versions

## README

# `@lexical/headless`

[![See API Documentation](https://lexical.dev/img/see-api-documentation.svg)](https://lexical.dev/docs/api/modules/lexical_headless)

This package allows you to interact with Lexical in a headless environment (one that does not rely on DOM, e.g. for Node.js environment), and use its
main features like editor.update(), editor.registerNodeTransform(), editor.registerUpdateListener()
to create, update or traverse state.

Install `@lexical/headless`:

```
npm install --save @lexical/headless
```

```js
import { createHeadlessEditor } from '@lexical/headless';

const editor = createHeadlessEditor({
  nodes: [],
  onError: () => {},
});

editor.update(() => {
  $getRoot().append(
    $createParagraphNode().append(
      $createTextNode('Hello world')
    )
  )
});
```

Lexical packages are published as ES modules. A CommonJS project can load them
with `require()` on Node.js 20.19 or later, but any dependency it shares with
Lexical (such as `yjs`) has to be loaded as an ES module as well, or the
project ends up with two copies of it; see
[Which module formats are published?](https://lexical.dev/docs/faq#which-module-formats-are-published-esm-commonjs-nodejs-react-native).

Any plugins that do not rely on DOM could also be used. Here's an example of how
you can convert lexical editor state to markdown on server:
```js
import { createHeadlessEditor } from '@lexical/headless';
import { $convertToMarkdownString, TRANSFORMERS } from '@lexical/markdown';

app.get('article/:id/markdown', async (req, res) => {
  const editor = createHeadlessEditor({
    nodes: [],
    onError: () => {},
  });

  const articleEditorStateJSON = await loadArticleBody(req.query.id);
  editor.setEditorState(editor.parseEditorState(articleEditorStateJSON));

  editor.update(() => {
    const markdown = $convertToMarkdownString(TRANSFORMERS);
    res.send(markdown);
  });
});

```

---
_Source: https://npm.io/package/@lexical/headless · Machine-readable twin of the npm.io package page. Health data is recomputed on every publish._