diff --git a/markdown/src/main/kotlin/com/engine/protoc/util/markdown/MarkdownText.kt b/markdown/src/main/kotlin/com/engine/protoc/util/markdown/MarkdownText.kt
index 3ef2916..b223f3b 100644
--- a/markdown/src/main/kotlin/com/engine/protoc/util/markdown/MarkdownText.kt
+++ b/markdown/src/main/kotlin/com/engine/protoc/util/markdown/MarkdownText.kt
@@ -7,6 +7,10 @@ import org.commonmark.node.Link
 import org.commonmark.node.Node
 import org.commonmark.node.Paragraph
 import org.commonmark.node.Text
+import org.commonmark.renderer.NodeRenderer
+import org.commonmark.renderer.markdown.CoreMarkdownNodeRenderer
+import org.commonmark.renderer.markdown.MarkdownNodeRendererContext
+import org.commonmark.renderer.markdown.MarkdownNodeRendererFactory
 import org.commonmark.renderer.markdown.MarkdownRenderer
 import org.commonmark.renderer.text.TextContentRenderer
 import java.text.BreakIterator
@@ -16,7 +20,11 @@ import java.util.Locale
  * Conversions of parsed doc-comment Markdown into the strings a plugin emits.
  */
 public object MarkdownText {
-    private val defaultMarkdownRenderer: MarkdownRenderer = MarkdownRenderer.builder().build()
+    private val bareUrl = Regex("""https?://[^\s<>\[\]]+""")
+    private val trailingPunctuation = charArrayOf('.', ',', ';', ':', '!', '?', ')', '\'', '"')
+
+    private val defaultMarkdownRenderer: MarkdownRenderer =
+        MarkdownRenderer.builder().nodeRendererFactory(BareUrlRendererFactory).build()
     private val textRenderer: TextContentRenderer = TextContentRenderer.builder().stripNewlines(true).build()
 
     /**
@@ -89,4 +97,39 @@ public object MarkdownText {
         val end = iterator.next()
         return if (end == BreakIterator.DONE) plain else plain.substring(0, end).trim()
     }
+
+    /**
+     * Writes bare `http(s)://` URLs inside [Text] nodes verbatim.  The core renderer backslash-escapes
+     * `_` and `*` in text, which would turn `ISO_8601` in a bare URL into `ISO\_8601`; the parser
+     * does not autolink bare URLs, so the escaped form is never read back and leaks into the output.
+     * All other text still goes through the core renderer's escaping.
+     */
+    private object BareUrlRendererFactory : MarkdownNodeRendererFactory {
+        override fun create(context: MarkdownNodeRendererContext): NodeRenderer = BareUrlRenderer(context)
+
+        override fun getSpecialCharacters(): Set<Char> = emptySet()
+    }
+
+    private class BareUrlRenderer(private val context: MarkdownNodeRendererContext) : NodeRenderer {
+        private val core = CoreMarkdownNodeRenderer(context)
+
+        override fun getNodeTypes(): Set<Class<out Node>> = setOf(Text::class.java)
+
+        override fun render(node: Node) {
+            val literal = (node as Text).literal
+            var last = 0
+            for (match in bareUrl.findAll(literal)) {
+                val url = match.value.trimEnd(*trailingPunctuation)
+                if (url.length <= "https://".length) continue
+                core.writeText(literal.substring(last, match.range.first))
+                context.writer.raw(url)
+                last = match.range.first + url.length
+            }
+            core.writeText(literal.substring(last))
+        }
+
+        private fun CoreMarkdownNodeRenderer.writeText(text: String) {
+            if (text.isNotEmpty()) visit(Text(text))
+        }
+    }
 }
diff --git a/markdown/src/test/kotlin/ReferenceLinkTests.kt b/markdown/src/test/kotlin/ReferenceLinkTests.kt
index f47bec4..2abdfd5 100644
--- a/markdown/src/test/kotlin/ReferenceLinkTests.kt
+++ b/markdown/src/test/kotlin/ReferenceLinkTests.kt
@@ -257,6 +257,13 @@ class MarkdownTextTests :
             MarkdownText.firstSentence(parser.parse("")) shouldBe ""
         }
 
+        test("render leaves bare URLs unescaped but still escapes other text") {
+            val url = "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601#Combined_date_and_time_representations"
+            MarkdownText.render(parser.parse("See $url")) shouldBe "See $url"
+            MarkdownText.render(parser.parse("See $url.")) shouldBe "See $url."
+            MarkdownText.render(parser.parse("a \\_b\\_ and $url (c)")) shouldBe "a \\_b\\_ and $url (c)"
+        }
+
         test("render trims trailing whitespace") {
             MarkdownText.render(parser.parse("*line one*   \n\n\n")) shouldBe "*line one*"
         }