MDS054: no-undefined-reference-labels

Reference-style links and images must have a matching link reference definition in the same file.

# Settings

# shortcut values

# Config

rules:
  no-undefined-reference-labels:
    shortcut: heuristic
    placeholders: []

Disable:

rules:
  no-undefined-reference-labels: false

# Examples

# Good

# Full Reference

See [example][site] for more.

[site]: https://example.com

# Good – collapsed reference

# Collapsed Reference

See [example][] for more.

[example]: https://example.com

# Good – prose brackets skipped by heuristic

# Prose Brackets

Use [just brackets] in prose without a definition; the heuristic
skips it because the label has spaces.

# Bad – undefined full reference

# Undefined Full Reference

See [example][broken] for more.

# Bad – undefined collapsed reference

# Undefined Collapsed Reference

See [broken][] for more.

# Bad – undefined shortcut (heuristic)

# Shortcut Heuristic

See [plan128] for the plan.

# Diagnostics

# Background

goldmark only constructs an *ast.Link for a reference-style usage when a matching link reference definition exists. When the definition is missing, goldmark leaves the bracketed text as plain text. A source-level scan is required to detect these dropped patterns.

Reference labels are CommonMark-normalized before lookup: case-folded, inner whitespace collapsed, and ends trimmed. [Foo Bar][BAR] resolves against [bar]: url.

# See also

• MDS027 cross-file-reference-integrity
• Placeholder grammar

# Meta-Information

• ID: MDS054
• Name: no-undefined-reference-labels
• Status: ready
• Default: enabled, shortcut: heuristic, placeholders: []
• Fixable: no
• Implementation: source
• Category: link
• markdownlint: MD052 (reference-links-images)
• rumdl: MD052 (reference-links-images)
• panache: undefined-references