In yaml block, first author cannot have a URL

[danshearer]

Explain the problem.

In the yaml header field "author", URLs work for any number of authors I tried, except for the first author.

author:  [Dan Shearer](https://cv.shearer.org/w/CV_List_View) and [Someone Else](https://example.org/)

which gives the error:

YAML parse exception at line 2, column 21,
while parsing a block mapping:
did not find expected key

Workaround

any text, even just a full stop followed by a space "." before the first author will prevent this happening. For example:

author: .  [Dan Shearer](https://cv.shearer.org/w/CV_List_View) and [Someone Else](https://example.org/)

Pandoc version

pandoc 3.1.8
Features: +server +lua
Scripting engine: Lua 5.4

Installed from amd64 binary download into VMs of Debian 12 and Ubuntu 23.04

[jgm]

Generally when you run into a YAML parsing error, it means you should enclose the whole field in single quotes. That will ensure that things like colons are not interpreted by YAML, but rather by pandoc.

[danshearer]

That fixes it, thanks. I didn't think of that.

How about that advice goes into relevant error messages, eg:

YAML parse exception at line 2, column 21,
while parsing a block mapping:
did not find expected key

Consider enclosing the entire field in 'single quotes'.