Rule - MD055

Property	Value
Aliases	md055, table-pipe-style
Autofix Available	No
Enabled By Default	Yes

Summary

Table pipe style.

Reasoning

Consistency

The GFM table syntax allows the leading and trailing pipe (|) characters on each row to be present or omitted independently. While every combination renders the same, mixing styles within a document is harder to read and to maintain. This rule enforces a single, consistent leading/trailing pipe style across every row of every table, including the header row and the delimiter row.

Examples

Failure Scenarios

This rule triggers when a row's use of leading and trailing pipe characters does not match the expected style. With the default consistent style, the first row of the first table sets the expected style, and any row that deviates is reported. Here the body row is missing its trailing pipe:

| abc | def |
| --- | --- |
| ghi | jkl

Correct Scenarios

This rule does not trigger when every row uses the same leading and trailing pipe style:

| abc | def |
| --- | --- |
| ghi | jkl |

Configuration

Prefixes
plugins.md055.
plugins.table-pipe-style.

Value Name	Type	Default	Description
enabled	boolean	True	Whether the Rule Plugin is enabled.
style	string	consistent	Required leading/trailing pipe style.

The allowable values for the style value are:

Value	Description
consistent	The first table row sets the expected style for the rest of the document.
leading_and_trailing	Each row must have both a leading and a trailing pipe.
leading_only	Each row must have a leading pipe but no trailing pipe.
trailing_only	Each row must have a trailing pipe but no leading pipe.
no_leading_or_trailing	Each row must have neither a leading nor a trailing pipe.

As tables are only recognized when the Markdown Tables extension is enabled, this rule has no effect unless that extension is turned on.

Origination of Rule

This rule is largely inspired by the MarkdownLint rule MD055.