MD006 - Consider starting bulleted lists at the beginning of the line

Tags: bullet, ul, indentation

Aliases: ul-start-left

This rule is triggered when top level lists don't start at the beginning of a line:

Some text
 
  * List item
  * List item

To fix, ensure that top level list items are not indented:

Some test
 
* List item
* List item

Rationale: Starting lists at the beginning of the line means that nested list items can all be indented by the same amount when an editor's indent function or the tab key is used to indent. Starting a list 1 space in means that the indent of the first nested list is less than the indent of the second level (3 characters if you use 4 space tabs, or 1 character if you use 2 space tabs).

MD001 - Header levels should only increment by one level at a time

Tags: headers

Aliases: header-increment

This rule is triggered when you skip header levels in a markdown document, for example:

# Header 1
 
### Header 3
 
We skipped out a 2nd level header in this document

When using multiple header levels, nested headers should increase by only one level at a time:

# Header 1
 
## Header 2
 
### Header 3
 
#### Header 4
 
## Another Header 2
 
### Another Header 3

MD022 - Headers should be surrounded by blank lines

Tags: headers, blank_lines

Aliases: blanks-around-headers

This rule is triggered when headers (any style) are either not preceded or not followed by a blank line:

# Header 1
Some text
 
Some more text
## Header 2

To fix this, ensure that all headers have a blank line both before and after (except where the header is at the beginning or end of the document):

# Header 1
 
Some text
 
Some more text
 
## Header 2

Rationale: Aside from aesthetic reasons, some parsers, including kramdown, will not parse headers that don't have a blank line before, and will parse them as regular text.

MD032 - Lists should be surrounded by blank lines

Tags: bullet, ul, ol, blank_lines

Aliases: blanks-around-lists

This rule is triggered when lists (of any kind) are either not preceded or not followed by a blank line:

Some text
* Some
* List
 
1. Some
2. List
Some text

To fix this, ensure that all lists have a blank line both before and after (except where the block is at the beginning or end of the document):

Some text
 
* Some
* List
 
1. Some
2. List
 
Some text

Rationale: Aside from aesthetic reasons, some parsers, including kramdown, will not parse lists that don't have blank lines before and after them.

Note: List items without hanging indents are a violation of this rule; list items with hanging indents are okay:

* This is
not okay
 
* This is
  okay