Comparison with yamllint¶

This page compares yamkix's opinionated defaults with yamllint's relaxed preset. For the reasoning behind yamkix's defaults, see Formatting rules; for yamllint's side, see its configuration presets and detailed rules documentation.

A framing note first: the two are different kinds of tools. yamllint checks YAML and reports problems; yamkix rewrites it. So the meaningful question is not "do they have the same options" but: does yamkix's default output satisfy the relaxed ruleset, and where do their opinions diverge?

yamkix defaults recap¶

Setting	Default value
`parsing_mode`	`rt` (round-trip: preserves comments, anchors, key order)
`explicit_start`	`True` (emits `---`)
`explicit_end`	`False`
`default_flow_style`	`False` (block style for new collections; existing flow preserved in `rt`)
`dash_inwards`	`True` → indent `mapping=2, sequence=4, offset=2`
`quotes_preserved`	`True`
`spaces_before_comment`	`None` (comment spacing untouched)
`line_width`	`2048`

What the relaxed preset changes vs yamllint default¶

The relaxed preset extends: default and is deliberately more tolerant:

Disabled rules: comments, comments-indentation, document-start, truthy
Downgraded to warning: braces, brackets (both with max-spaces-inside: 1), colons, commas, empty-lines, hyphens, indentation (with indent-sequences: consistent), line-length (with allow-non-breakable-inline-mappings: true)
Still errors: anchors, key-duplicates, new-line-at-end-of-file, new-lines, trailing-spaces
Already disabled in default: document-end, quoted-strings, octal-values, key-ordering, empty-values, float-values

What matches¶

Concern	yamkix default	yamllint relaxed	Verdict
`document-end` (`...`)	`explicit_end=False`	rule disabled	Aligned
Quote style	preserved as-is	`quoted-strings` disabled	Aligned — both hands-off
Truthy values (`yes`/`on`…)	`rt` preserves scalars verbatim	disabled	Aligned
Comment spacing/indent	untouched by default	`comments`/`comments-indentation` disabled	Aligned — both hands-off
Indentation	consistent 2-space maps, dashes always indented	`spaces: consistent`, `indent-sequences: consistent` (warning)	Passes — yamkix output is consistent by construction
`hyphens` / `colons` / `commas`	ruamel emits `- x`, `key: v`, `[a, b]` — canonical single spaces	max 1 space (warnings)	Passes
`brackets` / `braces`	ruamel emits flow collections with no inner padding	up to 1 inner space tolerated	Passes
`new-lines` (unix), `new-line-at-end-of-file`, `trailing-spaces`	ruamel emitter guarantees all three	errors	Passes
`key-duplicates`	ruamel `rt` loader raises `DuplicateKeyError`	error	Aligned — yamkix is even stricter (refuses the input)

Divergences¶

document-start — yamkix is stricter than relaxed. yamkix always adds --- (explicit_start=True); relaxed does not care either way (rule disabled). No conflict — but yamkix here matches the default preset's opinion (warning if missing), not relaxed's indifference.
line-length — the main real gap. relaxed still warns at 80 characters (softened by allow-non-breakable-inline-mappings: true). yamkix uses line_width=2048, i.e. it deliberately never wraps — and it will not shorten long input lines either. yamkix output can freely trigger line-length warnings under relaxed. (Warning-level only, so yamllint -d relaxed still exits 0 unless --strict is used.) See Can yamkix wrap long lines itself? below before reaching for --line-width.
empty-lines — unenforced by yamkix. relaxed warns above 2 consecutive blank lines (max: 2, max-start/end: 0). ruamel's round-trip preserves blank-line runs attached to comments, so yamkix can pass through more than 2 blank lines untouched.
indent-sequences philosophy. relaxed merely requires consistency (indented dashes or not — pick one). yamkix's dash_inwards actively normalizes to indented dashes (offset=2). The output is compatible, but yamkix imposes one of the two styles relaxed would accept — closer to yamllint default's indent-sequences: true.
Scope difference. yamkix normalizes things yamllint never even looks at in relaxed mode: it round-trips through a parser (so it rejects invalid YAML outright, where yamllint reports syntax errors), and it can rewrite quote styles or flow style on demand.

Can yamkix wrap long lines itself?¶

In theory, yes: the -w/--line-width option sets the wrap width (default 2048, i.e. never wrap), so yamkix -w 80 asks the emitter to fold lines at yamllint's limit:

yamkix --input file.yml --line-width 80

Fold-point trailing spaces: fixed since 1.1.0

The underlying ruamel.yaml emitter leaves a trailing space at every fold point when it wraps plain scalars and flow collections — and trailing-spaces is an error-level rule in both the default and relaxed presets. Since yamkix 1.1.0 this artifact is stripped from the output (issue #437), so wrapped output no longer trips trailing-spaces.

Remaining caveats before reaching for --line-width 80: folded flow collections can trip the indentation rule (warning-level in relaxed), and non-breakable tokens (long URLs…) still exceed the width anyway (tolerated by yamllint thanks to allow-non-breakable-words: true). yamkix still ships with line_width=2048 by default; if you prefer not to wrap, the yamllint side can be reconciled with the companion config below.

Bottom line¶

yamkix default output passes yamllint -d relaxed cleanly except for two warning-level rules: line-length (lines over 80 characters, since yamkix never wraps) and potentially empty-lines (preserved blank-line runs). No error-level rule of the relaxed preset can be violated by yamkix output.

Interestingly, yamkix's temperament (mandatory ---, forced dash indentation) sits closer to yamllint's default preset than to relaxed — it is an opinionated formatter whose output is roughly "yamllint default-compliant, minus the 80-character limit".

A yamllint config that exactly blesses yamkix output

---
extends: relaxed
rules:
  line-length: disable