Rule - MD038

Property	Value
Aliases	md038, no-space-in-code
Autofix Available	Yes
Enabled By Default	Yes

Summary

Remove extra leading and trailing spaces from code span elements.

Reasoning

Correctness

Different parsers interpret leading and trailing spaces in code spans inconsistently. This rule triggers on unbalanced spaces to ensure the author's intent is preserved across renderers.

Examples

Failure Scenarios

This rule triggers when there are unbalanced spaces at the start:

this is an ` invalid` code span

Explanation: This example violates the rule because there is a leading space inside the code span that is not matched by a trailing space. The rule requires that leading and trailing spaces be balanced or absent.

Unlike the first example, this case has an unbalanced trailing space instead of a leading space:

this is an `invalid ` code span

Explanation: This example violates the rule because there is a trailing space inside the code span that is not matched by a leading space. The rule requires that leading and trailing spaces be balanced or absent.

Unlike the previous examples, this case uses multiple balanced spaces at the start and end of the code span:

this is an `  invalid  ` code span

Explanation: This example violates the rule because the code span has two leading spaces and two trailing spaces. The rule permits at most a single balanced pair of spaces; any additional leading or trailing space triggers the failure.

Unlike the previous examples, this case has more leading spaces than trailing spaces, making the pair unbalanced:

this is an `  invalid ` code span

Explanation: This example violates the rule because the code span has two leading spaces but only one trailing space. The rule requires that any leading and trailing spaces form exactly one balanced pair; an uneven count on either side is not permitted, even though both sides contain a space.

Correct Scenarios

This rule does not trigger when there are no spaces at the start and end of the code span text:

this is a `valid` code span

Explanation: This example satisfies the rule because there are no leading or trailing spaces within the code span. The content is clean and unambiguous for all parsers.

Unlike the first example, this case includes a single balanced space at both the start and end of the code span:

this is a ` valid ` code span

Explanation: This example satisfies the rule because there is exactly one leading and one trailing space. Standard Markdown parsers automatically strip this single pair of spaces, ensuring consistent rendering.

Unlike the previous examples, this case uses a doubled-backtick code span whose inner text contains a literal backtick, where the surrounding spaces are required to keep the span from terminating early:

this is a `` `valid` `` code span

Explanation: This example satisfies the rule because the code span uses a doubled-backtick fence and contains a literal backtick in its inner text. The spaces adjacent to the inner backtick are required to disambiguate the span's content, and the rule preserves them rather than treating them as removable "extra" spaces.

Fix Description

A single leading and/or trailing space is removed from the code span text when it is balanced (i.e., present at both ends). The exception is when the character adjacent to that space is a backtick (`), because in that case the space is required to keep the code span from terminating early (e.g., `code` ). In that case, the autofix preserves the space.

Configuration

Prefixes
plugins.md038.
plugins.no-space-in-code.

Value Name	Type	Default	Description
enabled	boolean	True	Whether the Rule Plugin is enabled.

Origination of Rule

This rule is largely inspired by the MarkdownLint rule MD038.