Reference

Look up exact CLI commands, config glob and schema syntax, the built-in conventions, and the section-schema grammar.

• CLI commands, flags, exit codes, and output format.
• List workspace links that point at a file.
• Lint Markdown files for style issues.
• List a file’s dependency-graph edges (includes, links, catalogs, builds).
• Write a portable, directive-free copy of a Markdown file.
• Emit a schema-conformant Markdown file as a JSON/YAML/msgpack data tree.
• Auto-fix lint issues in Markdown files in place.
• Show built-in documentation for rules, metrics, and concept pages.
• Write .mdsmith.yml from the built-in defaults, a --starter scaffold, or a --from-markdownlint conversion; add curated .mdsmith/ bundles with --add; --force overwrites an existing config and --list prints every starter and pack.
• Inspect declared file kinds and resolve effective rule config per file.
• Selection-style commands that walk the workspace and emit matches.
• Run a Language Server Protocol server on stdio for editor integrations.
• Git merge driver that resolves conflicts inside generated sections.
• Get, list, and rank shared Markdown metrics (file length, token estimate, readability, …).
• Install / manage a pre-merge-commit hook that runs mdsmith fix after a merge.
• Select Markdown files by a CUE expression on front matter.
• Rename a heading or link-reference label and rewrite every dependent edit.
• Review the .mdsmith.yml diff since it was last trusted and update the build trust marker on this clone.
• Print the mdsmith build version and exit.
• Each file under .mdsmith/conventions/ declares one user convention. The basename is the convention name; the file body carries a flavor: plus a rules: map. Sits alongside inline conventions.<name>: in .mdsmith.yml.
• Built-in Markdown conventions, the rule presets each one applies, and how user config layers on top via deep-merge.
• The top-level foreign-regions: config lists {start, end} marker pairs whose spanned bytes mdsmith treats as opaque — style rules skip diagnostics inside a matched pair and fixers never rewrite it, while whole-file rules still count the bytes. Glob-scopable via overrides:; a start with no matching end reports MDS074.
• Glob pattern syntax across mdsmith config, directives, and CLI argument expansion, with the supported exclusion semantics for each surface.
• Each file under .mdsmith/kinds/ declares one kind. The basename is the kind name; the file body carries the full KindBody — schema, rules, path-pattern:, extends:. Sits alongside inline kinds.<name>: in .mdsmith.yml.
• Every markdownlint rule and the mdsmith rule that covers it, generated from the rule README front matter — the same data mdsmith init --from-markdownlint reads.
• Each file under .mdsmith/schemas/ declares one named schema. The basename is the schema name; the body carries the inline schemas.<name>: keys. A kind references one by name (schema: rfc-v1).
• Named field-type shortcuts for inline schema frontmatter values — the registered names, the canonical CUE each one resolves to, and example usage.
• Section-schema reference for inline kinds.<name>.schema: blocks. Covers the heading: discriminator, the regex: matcher (a Go RE2 body with \#(digits) and \#(fmvar(...)) helpers), the repeat: {min, max} cardinality field, and the matching algorithm. proto.md files are parsed into the same shape by the schema package, but MDS020’s file-schema check still uses its legacy parser; see the proto.md section below for what is and is not migrated.
• mdsmith collects no telemetry, no usage analytics, no error reports, and no identifiers. The CLI and the LSP server make no outbound network calls at runtime in the default configuration. The one opt-in exception is MDS072 (external-link-check), which probes document URLs when explicitly enabled.
• Settings and troubleshooting for the mdsmith VS Code extension: the five mdsmith.* settings, fix-on-save wiring, and fixes for its known failure modes.
• Each file under .mdsmith/wordlists/ declares one named word-list: an optional extends: parent and an entries: list of literal strings. A rule pulls a list in through its lists: setting and the entries union with the rule’s own list. No lists ship compiled in; a project declares every list it uses.