The blog of dlaa.me

Posts from December 2015

Catch common Markdown mistakes as you make them [markdownlint is a Visual Studio Code extension to lint Markdown files]

The lightweight, cross-platform Visual Studio Code editor recently gained support for extensions, third party packages that add or enhance capabilities of the tool. Of particular interest to me are linters, syntax checkers that help avoid mistakes and maintain consistency when working with a language (either code or markup). I've previously written about markdownlint, a Node.js linter for the Markdown markup language. After looking at the VS Code API, it seemed straightforward to create a markdownlint extension for Code. I did so and published markdownlint to the extension gallery where it can be installed via the command ext install markdownlint. What's nice about editor integration for a linter is that feedback is immediate and interactive: mistakes are highlighted as they're made and it's easy to click a link for information about any rule violation.

If linting Markdown is something that interests you, please try the markdownlint extension for VS Code and share your feedback!