mdrefine

style/lazy-continuation ​

Writes the markers and indentation of a paragraph's containers on its lazy continuation lines: lines that continue the paragraph of a block quote, a list item, or a footnote definition without the quote's > or the item's or definition's indentation. The renderers read such a line as part of the paragraph either way, so the text stays the same, and the document's structure shows in its source.

Style rule, fixed by format. Presets: recommended (warn). Dialects: all. Options: none.

Before:

markdown
> Back up the database
before the migration.

- Unpack the board
and check the cables.

After:

markdown
> Back up the database
> before the migration.

- Unpack the board
  and check the cables.

Edge cases and advanced usage ​

Details: a quote gets its >, indented as on the quote's first line and with one space after it; a list item gets the columns up to its text; a footnote definition gets four spaces; nested containers get all of theirs. The spaces that a lazy line starts with are replaced, not added to, and a footnote definition's first line stays on the line of its label.

Left as written: a paragraph's lazy lines, all of them, where one of them could read otherwise inside its containers. The rule writes a prefix only on a line that starts with a letter or another character that is not ASCII punctuation, a number not followed by . or ), emphasis, a code span, a link or image, an opening parenthesis, or a quotation mark, and that holds no | and does not look like a link reference or footnote definition. A line of === below a lazy line, for example, is text, and inside a quote it would underline the text above it as a heading; 2. Step, - item, # Title, <span>, and a table row are others, also after the spaces that a lazy line starts with. Lazy lines also stay:

  • inside a code span or other inline syntax that keeps the spaces at the start of its lines;
  • with a tab among their containers' prefixes;
  • as a lazy first line below a link reference definition;
  • in paragraphs with site-generator syntax such as ::: or {{ at the start of a line.

Dialect notes ​

In VitePress: lazy lines also stay in documents with a custom container's fence on a quote's line, and below a component line such as <MyComponent />, which ends the paragraph there, so that a line without the item's indentation starts a paragraph after the list.

In Obsidian: the rule writes only the prefixes observed to leave both views unchanged: a quote's > where the lazy line lacks every > of its quotes, and list items' indentation where that is all it lacks. Live Preview shows the line otherwise once a footnote definition's lazy line is indented, once a quote inside a list item gets its >, and once a nested quote's > is written after its outer quote's, so these lazy lines, and the combinations not observed, stay as written with a finding whose message starts with Left as written to preserve Obsidian rendering. So does a list item's lazy line with more blocks after it in the item, which Live Preview reads outside the list (issue #376).

style/wrap joins a lazy line onto the line before it when it reflows the paragraph, and writes the containers' prefixes on the lines that it breaks, so the two rules agree. This rule also changes the paragraphs that wrapping leaves as written, such as one with a hard line break.