flowchart TD
    A[Markdown Draft] --> B[Regex Link Extractor]
    B --> C{Link Type?}
    
    C -->|Target Link| D[Protected: Keep Intact]
    C -->|External Link| E[Live HTTP Probe]
    
    E -->|Status 200 OK| F[Keep Markdown Link]
    E -->|4xx / 5xx / Timeout| G[Unwrap Markdown Markup]
    
    G --> H[Convert to Plain Text Anchor]
    
    D --> I[Clean Markdown Output]
    F --> I
    H --> I