New Rule: no-unused-definition

[lumirlumir]

Rule details

Disallow unused definitions

What type of rule is this?

Warns about a potential problem

Example code

Prior Art

• MD053
• remark-lint-no-unused-definitions

Participation

• I am willing to submit a pull request to implement this rule.

Additional comments

In this issue, I would like to suggest a rule named no-unused-definition.

This rule disallows unused reference definitions in Markdown documents. Reference definitions provide a way to create reusable links or images, but when they're defined but never referenced, they add unnecessary clutter to your document.

The rule identifies definition entries (e.g., [reference-id]: http://example.com) that are not referenced by any link or image in the document and reports them as violations. Removing unused definitions helps keep your Markdown documents clean and maintainable.

[TKDev7]

Can you clarify what potential problems are caused by unused definitions? I believe they shouldn't cause any functional issues.

[nzakas]

They don't cause any functional issues, just like unused JavaScript variables don't cause any functional issue and we still have the no-unused-vars rule for that case. It's more a code smell to leave unused bits in your file.

I'm 👍