Vale: Your Style, Our Editor

Vale is a natural language linter that supports plain text, markup (Markdown, reStructuredText, AsciiDoc, and HTML), and source code comments. Vale doesn't attempt to offer a one-size-fits-all collection of rules—instead, it strives to make customization as easy as possible.

Check out project website to learn more!

• Supports Markdown, reStructuredText, AsciiDoc, HTML, and source code.
• Extensible through straightforward YAML files.
• Standalone binaries for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
• Expressive, EditorConfig-like configuration.

Vale's functionality is split into extension points (called "checks") that can be customized to perform many different kinds of tasks, including finding insensitive words and phrases, measuring sentence length, enforcing a particular heading style, and identifying undefined acronyms. See the Style Showcase for more advanced examples.

Additionally, since Vale is "syntax aware," you'll never have to worry about syntax-related false positives (e.g., URLs or code blocks). See Creating a style for more information.

There are a few options to choose from:

• Homebrew or Linuxbrew:

  $ brew tap ValeLint/vale
  $ brew install vale

• Chocolatey:

  C:\> choco install vale		

• A Windows Installer package (.msi), which you'll find on the releases page.

• Manually on Windows, macOS, or Linux by downloading an executable from the releases page.

Run Vale on a single file:

$ vale README.md

Run Vale on files matching a particular glob:

# Only lint Markdown and reStructuredText
$ vale --glob='*.{md,rst}' directory

Or exclude files matching a particular glob:

# Ignore all `.txt` files
$ vale --glob='!*.txt' directory

Pipe input to Vale:

$ echo 'this is some very interesting text' | vale

Run Vale on text with an assigned syntax:

$ vale --ext=.md 'this is some `very` interesting text'

See vale --help and Configuration for more information.

• Atom—TimKam/atomic-vale
• Emacs—abingham/flycheck-vale
• Sublime Text—ValeLint/SubVale
• Visual Studio Code—lunaryorn/vscode-vale
• Vim—via ALE (thanks to @chew-z)

To use one of these styles, you'd copy its files onto your StylesPath and then specify it in your config file:

# This goes in a file named either `.vale` or `_vale`.

StylesPath = path/to/some/directory
MinAlertLevel = warning # suggestion, warning or error

[*.{md,txt}] # Only Markdown and .txt files
# List of styles to load
BasedOnStyles = vale, Joblint
# Style.Rule = {YES, NO, suggestion, warning, error} to
# enable/disable a rule or change its level.
vale.Editorializing = NO

See Configuration and Styles for more information.