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MD062 - No whitespace in link destinations

Aliases: link-destination-whitespace, no-space-in-link-destination

What this rule does

Removes unnecessary whitespace inside parentheses for link and image destinations.

Why this matters

  • Copy-paste errors: Extra spaces often appear from copying URLs with leading/trailing whitespace
  • Clean formatting: Link destinations should be tightly wrapped
  • Consistent style: Matches common markdown conventions
  • Prevents issues: Some parsers may handle whitespace inconsistently

Examples

Correct

Link destinations directly touch the parentheses:

[Visit our website](https://example.com)

![Company logo](logo.png)

[Link with title](https://example.com "Title text")

Incorrect

Extra spaces inside parentheses around the URL:

[Visit our website]( https://example.com)

[Visit our website](https://example.com )

[Visit our website]( https://example.com )

![Company logo]( logo.png )

Fixed

Spaces removed from inside parentheses:

[Visit our website](https://example.com)

[Visit our website](https://example.com)

[Visit our website](https://example.com)

![Company logo](logo.png)

Configuration

This rule has no configuration options.

Automatic fixes

This rule will:

  • Remove spaces after opening parenthesis (
  • Remove spaces before closing parenthesis )
  • Work on both regular links and images
  • Preserve link titles (e.g., "title text")
  • Handle spaces, tabs and line endings

Only those characters are whitespace in a link destination. U+00A0 and the other Unicode spaces are part of the destination, so they are neither reported nor removed.

A destination that spans lines is joined onto one line. Inside a blockquote the > markers of the continuation lines are dropped with the line breaks, so > [k]( followed by > ) becomes > [k](). A link whose title still spans lines after the fix is left alone, because the markers could not be put back.

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