textlint

The pluggable linting tool for text and markdown.
textlint is similar to ESLint, but it's for use with natural language.

Website

• Online demo
• Searchable documents
• Release blog

Visit https://textlint.github.io/.

Features

• No bundled rules.
• To use a rule, install a textlint rule via npm.
  • npm install textlint-rule-xxx.
  • See collection of textlint rules
• Markdown and plain text are supported by default. Support is available for HTML and other file formats via plugins.
• Supports the use of custom formatters and formatter bundles formatter(reporter)

Quick Tour

For a quick tour of textlint, checkout our Getting Started guide :squirrel:

Installation

You can install the textlint command using npm:

$ npm install textlint --global

Requirements:

• Node.js 6.0.0+
• npm 2.0.0+

If you're not sure what version of Node you're running, you can run node -v in your console to find out.

⚠️ Warning:

• If you have installed textlint globally you must install each reference rule globally as well.
• If you have installed textlint locally you must install each rule locally as well.

We recommend installing textlint locally.

For Node.js beginners

If you've never used Node.js and npm, please see the following:

• Installing Node.js and updating npm | npm Documentation

Usage

textlint has no default rules!!

You can run textlint with the --rule or --rulesdir flag to specify rules, or you can just use a .textlintrc config file.

# Install textlint's rule
npm install --global textlint-rule-no-todo

Use with textlint-rule-no-todo rule. (Allow to short textlint-rule-no-todo to no-todo)

textlint --rule no-todo README.md

📝 We recommended using .textlintrc to specify rules instead of --rule or --rulesdir flags. Your .textlintrc is a great way to maintain your rules.

CLI

Run textlint -h for information on how to use the CLI.

$ textlint [options] file.md [file|dir|glob*]
  
  Options:
    -h, --help                 Show help.
    -c, --config path::String  Use configuration from this file or sharable config.
    --init                     Create the config file if not existed. - default: false
    --fix                      Automatically fix problems
    --dry-run                  Enable dry-run mode for --fix. Only show result, don't change the file.
    --debug                    Outputs debugging information
    -v, --version              Outputs the version number.
  
  Using stdin:
    --stdin                    Lint text provided on <STDIN>. - default: false
    --stdin-filename String    Specify filename to process STDIN as
  
  Output:
    -o, --output-file path::String  Enable report to be written to a file.
    -f, --format String        Use a specific output format.
                               Available formatter          : checkstyle, compact, jslint-xml, json, junit, pretty-error, stylish, table, tap, unix
                               Available formatter for --fix: compats, diff, json, stylish
    --no-color                 Disable color in piped output.
    --quiet                    Report errors only. - default: false
  
  Specifying rules and plugins:
    --no-textlintrc            Disable .textlintrc
    --plugin [String]          Set plugin package name
    --rule [path::String]      Set rule package name
    --preset [path::String]    Set preset package name and load rules from preset package.
    --rulesdir [path::String]  Set rules from this directory and set all default rules to off.
  
  Caching:
    --cache                    Only check changed files - default: false
    --cache-location path::String  Path to the cache file or directory
  
  Experimental:
    --experimental             Enable experimental flag.Some feature use on experimental.
    --rules-base-directory path::String  Set module base directory. textlint load modules(rules/presets/plugins) from the base directory.

When running texlint, you can target files to lint using the glob patterns. Make sure that you enclose any glob parameter you pass in quotes.

$ textlint "docs/**"

Example:

• ℹ️ See examples/cli

.textlintrc

.textlintrc is config file that is loaded as JSON, YAML or JS via azu/rc-config-loader.

Running textlint with the following arguments

$ textlint --rule no-todo --rule very-nice-rule README.md

is equivalent to running textlint README.md in a directory with a .textlintrc containing the following json

{
  "rules": {
    "no-todo": true,
    "very-nice-rule": true
  }
}

You can also configure options for specific rules in your .textlintrc file.

{
  "rules": {
    "no-todo": false, // disable
    "very-nice-rule": {
        "key": "value"
    }
  }
}

For example here we pass the options ("key": "value") to very-nice-rule.

Options can be specified in your .textlintrc file as follows:

{
  // Allow to comment in JSON
  "rules": {
    "<rule-name>": true | false | object
  }
}

ℹ️ for more details see

• docs/configuring
• examples/config-file

Plugin

A textlint plugin is a set of rules and rulesConfig or customize parser.

To enable plugin, put the "plugin-name" into .textlintrc.

// `.textlintrc`
{
    "plugins": [
        "plugin-name"
    ],
    // overwrite-plugins rules config
    // <plugin>/<rule>
    "rules": {
        "plugin-name/rule-name" : false
    }
}

ℹ️ See docs/plugin.md

Supported file formats

textlint supports Markdown and plain text by default.

Install Processor Plugin and add new file format support.

For example, if you want to lint HTML, use textlint-plugin-html as a plugin.

npm install textlint-plugin-html

Add "html" to .textlintrc

{
    "plugins": [
        "html"
    ]
}

Run textlint on .html files:

textlint index.html

• Example: examples/html-plugin
• Documentation: docs/plugin.md

Optional supported file types:

• HTML: textlint-plugin-html
• reStructuredText: textlint-plugin-rst
• AsciiDoc/Asciidoctor: textlint-plugin-asciidoc-loose
• Re:VIEW: textlint-plugin-review

See Processor Plugin List for details.

Rules list 💚

textlint has not built-in rules, but there are 100+ pluggable rules:

• textlint-rule-no-todo
• textlint-rule-max-number-of-lines
• textlint-rule-common-misspellings
• etc...

See A Collection of textlint rule · textlint/textlint Wiki for more details.

If you create a new rule, and add it to the wiki :)

Fixable

Some rules are fixable using the --fix command line flag.

$ textlint --fix README.md
# As a possible, textlint fix the content.

Also, support dry run mode.

$ textlint --fix --dry-run --format diff README.md
# show the difference between fixed content and original content.

You can copy and paste to your README.

[![textlint fixable rule](https://img.shields.io/badge/textlint-fixable-green.svg?style=social)](https://textlint.github.io/)

Built-in formatters

Use the following formatters:

• stylish (defaults)
• compact
• checkstyle
• jslint-xml
• junit
• tap
• table
• pretty-error
• json
• unix

e.g. use pretty-error formatter:

$ textlint -f pretty-error file.md

More details in @textlint/linter-formatter.

Use as node module

You can use textlint as node module.

$ npm install textlint --save-dev

Minimal usage:

import { TextLintEngine } from "textlint";
const engine = new TextLintEngine({
    rulePaths: ["path/to/rule-dir"]
});
engine.executeOnFiles(["README.md"]).then((results) => {
    console.log(results[0].filePath); // => "README.md"
    // messages are `TextLintMessage` array.
    console.log(results[0].messages);
    /*
    [
        {
            id: "rule-name",
            message:"lint message",
            line: 1, // 1-based columns(TextLintMessage)
            column:1 // 1-based columns(TextLintMessage)
        }
    ]
     */
    if (engine.isErrorResults(results)) {
        const output = engine.formatResults(results);
        console.log(output);
    }
});

Low level usage:

import { textlint } from "textlint";
textlint.setupRules({
    // rule-key : rule function(see docs/rule.md)
    "rule-key"(context) {
        const exports = {};
        exports[context.Syntax.Str] = function (node) {
            context.report(node, new context.RuleError("error message"));
        };
        return exports;
    }
});
textlint.lintMarkdown("# title").then((results) => {
    console.log(results[0].filePath); // => "README.md"
    console.log(results[0].messages); // => [{message:"lint message"}]
});

More details on:

• See docs/use-as-modules.md

Conclusion

textlint has four extensible points:

• rule
  • rule is a rule for linting.
• filter rule
  • filter rule is a rule for filtering result of errors.
• rule-preset
  • rule-preset contains rules.
• plugin
  • plugin contains a processor.

FAQ: How to create rules?

Please see docs/

• docs/txtnode.md
  • What is TxtNode?
• docs/rule.md
  • How to create rules?
  • Tutorial: creating no-todo rule.
• docs/rule-advanced.md
  • Advanced tutorial for creating rule.

FAQ: How to suppress error by comments like <!-- textlint-disable -->?

You can use filter rule like textlint-filter-rule-comments.

Please see docs/configuring.md for more details.

Integrations

For more details, see integrations document.

App

• textlint-app
  • Standalone cross platform app. No need Node.js environment.

Build Systems

• gulp plugin
  • gulp-textlint
• Grunt plugin
  • grunt-textlint

Editors

• Atom Editor
  • 1000ch/linter-textlint
• SublimeText
  • joeybaker/sublimelinter-textlint
• Vim
  • vim-textlint
  • scrooloose/syntastic
    • See Markdown, Text and HTML of scrooloose/syntastic Wiki
• VS Code
  • taichi/vscode-textlint
• micro
  • hidaruma/micro-textlint-plugin
• NetBeans
  • netbeans-textlint-plugin

Browser

• Chrome Extension
  • Chrome: textlint-proofreader
  • io-monad/textlint-chrome-extension: textlint Chrome Extension

Other

• Pronto: pronto-textlint
• reviewdog: azu/textlint-reviewdog-example

Who's using textlint?

• survivejs/webpack-book
• hoodiehq/hoodie
• asciidwango/js-primer
• vuejs-jp/vuejs.org
• cypress-io/cypress-documentation

Packages

This repository is a monorepo that we manage using Lerna. That means that we actually publish several packages to npm from the same codebase, including:

Core

These modules are parts of textlint.

Package	Version	Description
textlint		textlint command line tool itself
@textlint/kernel		textlint main logic module. It is universal JavaScript.
@textlint/linter-formatter		textlint output formatter
@textlint/fixer-formatter		textlint output formatter for fixer
@textlint/textlint-plugin-markdown		markdown support for textlint
@textlint/textlint-plugin-text		plain text support for textlint
@textlint/ast-tester		Compliance tests for textlint's AST
@textlint/markdown-to-ast		markdown parser
@textlint/ast-traverse		TxtNode traverse library
@textlint/text-to-ast		plain text parser

Rule/Plugin helper

These modules are useful for textlint rule/plugin author.

Package	Version	Description
@textlint/ast-node-types		textlint AST(Abstract Syntax Tree) type definition
textlint-tester		textlint rule testing tools
textlint-scripts		textlint rule npm run-scripts
create-textlint-rule		create textlint rule with no build configuration

Integrations

These modules are useful integration with textlint.

Package	Version	Description
gulp-textlint		gulp plugin for textlint

Internal

These modules are internal usage in the monorepo.

Package	Version	Description
@textlint/feature-flag		feature flag manager

Semantic Versioning Policy

textlint project follow Semantic Versioning. However, textlint is not different with most semver project.

• Patch release (intended to not break your lint build)
  • A bug fix to the CLI or core (including formatters).
  • Improvements to documentation.
  • Non-user-facing changes such as refactoring.
  • Re-releasing after a failed release (i.e., publishing a release that doesn't work for anyone).
• Minor release (might break your lint build)
  • A new option.
  • An existing rule is deprecated.
  • A new CLI capability is created.
  • New public API are added (new classes, new methods, new arguments to existing methods, etc.).
    • It might break type interface(.d.ts)
  • A new formatter is created.
• Major release (break your lint build)
  • A new option to an existing rule that results in ESLint reporting more errors by default.
  • An existing formatter is removed.
  • Part of the public API is removed or changed in an incompatible way.

Contributing

For bugs and feature requests, please create an issue.

Pull requests is always welcome.

For more details, see Contributing Guide.

License

MIT © azu

Copy some code from ESLint.

ESLint
Copyright (c) 2013 Nicholas C. Zakas. All rights reserved.
https://github.com/eslint/eslint/blob/master/LICENSE

Logos & Icons

Download from textlint/media.

Related Work

SCG: TextLint is similar project.

SCG: TextLint's place is equal to my textlint(Fortuitously, project's name is the same too!).

via Natural Language Checking with Program Checking Tools

Acknowledgements

Thanks to ESLint.

textlint website is powered by Netlify.