About rules

We have taken great care to consistently name rules.

The rules have been designed to work together to enforce strict conventions.

About rule names

Rule names are:

• made up of lowercase words separated by hyphens
• split into two parts

The first part describes what thing the rule applies to. The second part describes what the rule is checking.

For example:

"number-leading-zero"
// ↑          ↑
// the thing  what the rule is checking

There is no first part when the rule applies to the whole stylesheet.

For example:

"no-eol-whitespace"
"indentation"
//    ↑
// what the rules are checking

No rules

Most rules require or disallow something.

For example, whether numbers must or must not have a leading zero:

• number-leading-zero: string - "always"|"never"
  • "always" - there must always be a leading zero
  • "never" - there must never be a leading zero

a { line-height: 0.5; }
/**              ↑
 * This leading zero */

However, some rules just disallow something. These rules include *-no-* in their name.

For example, whether empty blocks should be disallowed:

• block-no-empty - blocks must not be empty

a {   }
/** ↑
 * Blocks like this */

Notice how, for a rule like this, it does not make sense to have an option to enforce the opposite i.e. that every block must be empty.

Max and min rules

*-max-* and *-min-* rules are used to set a limit to something.

For example, specifying the maximum number of digits after the “.” in a number:

• number-max-precision: int

a { font-size: 1.333em; }
/**             ↑
 * The maximum number of digits after this "." */

Whitespace rules

Whitespace rules allow you to specify whether an empty line, a single space, a newline or no space must be used in some specific part of the stylesheet.

The whitespace rules combine two sets of keywords:

• before, after and inside are used to specify where the whitespace (if any) is expected
• empty-line, space and newline are used to specify whether a single empty line, a single space, a single newline or no space is expected there

For example, specifying if a single empty line or no space must come before all the comments in a stylesheet:

• comment-empty-line-before: string - "always"|"never"

a {}
              ←
/* comment */ ↑
              ↑
/**           ↑
 * This empty line  */

Additionally, some whitespace rule make use of another set of keywords:

• comma, colon, semicolon, opening-brace, closing-brace, opening-parenthesis, closing-parenthesis, operator or range-operator are used if a specific piece of punctuation in the thing is being targeted

For example, specifying if a single space or no space must follow a comma in a function:

• function-comma-space-after: string - "always"|"never"

a { transform: translate(1, 1) }
/**                       ↑
 * The space after this commas */

The plural of the punctuation is used for inside rules. For example, specifying if a single space or no space must be inside the parentheses of a function:

• function-parentheses-space-inside: string - "always"|"never"

a { transform: translate( 1, 1 ); }
/**                     ↑      ↑
 * The space inside these two parentheses */

Rules work together

The rules can be used together to enforce strict conventions.

*-newline/space-before and *-newline/space-after rules

Say you want to enforce no space before and a single space after the colon in every declaration:

a { color: pink; }
/**      ↑
 * No space before and a single space after this colon */

You can enforce that with:

"declaration-colon-space-after": "always",
"declaration-colon-space-before": "never"

Some things (e.g. declaration blocks and value lists) can span more than one line. In these cases newline rules and extra options can be used to provide flexibility.

For example, this is the complete set of value-list-comma-* rules and their options:

• value-list-comma-space-after: "always"|"never"|"always-single-line"|"never-single-line"
• value-list-comma-space-before: "always"|"never"|"always-single-line"|"never-single-line"
• value-list-comma-newline-after: "always"|"always-multi-line|"never-multi-line"
• value-list-comma-newline-before: "always"|"always-multi-line"|"never-multi-line"

Where *-multi-line and *-single-line are in reference to the value list (the thing). For example, given:

a,
b {
  color: red;
  font-family: sans, serif, monospace; /* single-line value list */
}              ↑                    ↑
/**            ↑                    ↑
 *  The value list start here and ends here */

There is only a single-line value list in this example. The selector is multi-line, as is the declaration block and, as such, also the rule. But the value list isn't and that is what the *-multi-line and *-single-line refer to in the context of this rule.

Example A

Say you only want to allow single-line value lists. And you want to enforce no space before and a single space after the commas:

a {
  font-family: sans, serif, monospace;
  box-shadow: 1px 1px 1px red, 2px 2px 1px 1px blue inset, 2px 2px 1px 2px blue inset;
}

You can enforce that with:

"value-list-comma-space-after": "always",
"value-list-comma-space-before": "never"

Example B

Say you want to allow both single-line and multi-line value lists. You want there to be a single space after the commas in the single-line lists and no space before the commas in both the single-line and multi-line lists:

a {
  font-family: sans, serif, monospace; /* single-line value list with space after, but no space before */
  box-shadow: 1px 1px 1px red, /* multi-line value list ... */
    2px 2px 1px 1px blue inset, /* ... with newline after, ...  */
    2px 2px 1px 2px blue inset; /* ... but no space before */
}

You can enforce that with:

"value-list-comma-newline-after": "always-multi-line",
"value-list-comma-space-after": "always-single-line",
"value-list-comma-space-before": "never"

Example C

Say you want to allow both single-line and multi-line value lists. You want there to be no space before the commas in the single-line lists and always a space after the commas in both lists:

a {
  font-family: sans, serif, monospace;
  box-shadow: 1px 1px 1px red
    , 2px 2px 1px 1px blue inset
    , 2px 2px 1px 2px blue inset;
}

You can enforce that with:

"value-list-comma-newline-before": "always-multi-line",
"value-list-comma-space-after": "always",
"value-list-comma-space-before": "never-single-line"

Example D

Lastly, the rules are flexible enough to enforce entirely different conventions for single-line and multi-line lists. Say you want to allow both single-line and multi-line value lists. You want the single-line lists to have a single space before and after the colons. Whereas you want the multi-line lists to have a single newline before the commas, but no space after:

a {
  font-family: sans , serif , monospace; /* single-line list with a single space before and after the comma */
  box-shadow: 1px 1px 1px red /* multi-line list ... */
    ,2px 2px 1px 1px blue inset /* ... with newline before, ...  */
    ,2px 2px 1px 2px blue inset; /* ... but no space after the comma */
}

You can enforce that with:

"value-list-comma-newline-after": "never-multi-line",
"value-list-comma-newline-before": "always-multi-line",
"value-list-comma-space-after": "always-single-line",
"value-list-comma-space-before": "always-single-line"

*-empty-line-before and *-max-empty-lines rules

These rules work together to control where empty lines are allowed.

Each thing is responsible for pushing itself away from the preceding thing, rather than pushing the subsequent thing away. This consistency is to avoid conflicts, and is why there aren't any *-empty-line-after rules in stylelint.

Say you want to enforce the following:

a {
  background: green;
  color: red;

  @media (min-width: 30em) {
    color: blue;
  }
}

b {
  --custom-property: green;

  background: pink;
  color: red;
}

You can do that with:

"at-rule-empty-line-before": ["always", {
  "except": ["first-nested"]
}],
"custom-property-empty-line-before": [ "always", {
  "except": [
    "after-custom-property",
    "first-nested"
  ]
}],
"declaration-empty-line-before": ["always", {
  "except": [
    "after-declaration",
    "first-nested"
  ]
}],
"block-closing-brace-empty-line-before": "never",
"rule-empty-line-before": ["always-multi-line"]

We recommend that you set your primary option (e.g. "always" or "never") to whatever is your most common occurrence and define your exceptions with the except optional secondary options. There are many values for the except option e.g. first-nested, after-comment etc.

The *-empty-line-before rules control whether there must never be an empty line or whether there must be one or more empty lines before a thing. The *-max-empty-lines rules complement this by controlling the number of empty lines within things. The max-empty-lines rule is used to set a limit across the entire source. A stricter limit can then be set within things using the likes of function-max-empty-lines, selector-max-empty-lines and value-list-max-empty-lines.

For example, say you want to enforce the following:

a,
b {
  box-shadow:
    inset 0 2px 0 #dcffa6,
    0 2px 5px #000;
}

c {
  transform:
    translate(
      1,
      1
    );
}

i.e. a maximum of 1 empty line within the whole source, but no empty lines within functions, selector lists and value lists.

You can do that with:

"function-max-empty-lines": 0,
"max-empty-lines": 1,
"selector-list-max-empty-lines": 0,
"value-list-max-empty-lines": 0

*-whitelist, *-blacklist, color-named and applicable *-no-* rules

These rules work together to (dis)allow language features and constructs.

There are *-whitelist and *-blacklist rules that target the main constructs of the CSS language: at-rules, functions, declarations (i.e. property-value pairs), properties and units. These rules can be used to (dis)allow any language features that makes use of these constructs (e.g. @media, rgb()). However, there are features not caught by these *-whitelist and *-blacklist rules (or are, but would require complex regex to configure). There are individual rules, usually a *-no-* rule (e.g. color-no-hex and selector-no-id), to disallow each of these features.

Say you want to disallow the @debug language extension. You can do that using either the at-rule-blacklist or at-rule-whitelist rules because the @debug language extension uses the at-rule construct e.g.

"at-rule-blacklist": ["debug"]

Say you want to, for whatever reason, disallow the whole at-rule construct. You can do that using:

"at-rule-whitelist": []

Say you want to disallow the value none for the border properties. You can do that using either the declaration-property-value-blacklist or declaration-property-value-whitelist e.g.

"declaration-property-value-blacklist": [{
  "/^border/": ["none"]
}]

color

Most <color> values are functions. As such, they can be (dis)allowed using either the function-blacklist or function-whitelist rules. There are two other color representations that aren't functions: named colors and hex colors. There are two specific rules that (dis)allow these: color-named and color-no-hex, respectively.

Say you want to enforce using a named color if one exists for your chosen color and use hwb color if one does not, e.g.:

a {
  background: hwb(235, 0%, 0%); /* there is no named color equivalent for this color */
  color: black;
}

If you're taking a whitelisting approach, you can do that with:

"color-named": "always-where-possible",
"color-no-hex": true,
"function-whitelist": ["hwb"]

Or, if you're taking a blacklisting approach:

"color-named": "always-where-possible",
"color-no-hex": true,
"function-blacklist": ["/^rgb/", "/^hsl/", "gray"]

This approach scales to when language extensions (that use the two built-in extendable syntactic constructs of at-rules and functions) are used. For example, say you want to disallow all standard color presentations in favour of using a custom color representation function, e.g. my-color(red with a dash of green / 5%). You can do that with:

"color-named": "never",
"color-no-hex": true,
"function-whitelist": ["my-color"]