# MD046 - Use Consistent Code Block Style
Aliases: `code-block-style`
## What this rule does
Ensures all code blocks in your document:
- Use the same style - either fenced (with backticks) or indented (with spaces)
- Are properly closed when using fenced style
## Why this matters
- **Readability**: Mixing styles makes documents harder to scan and understand
- **Maintainability**: Consistent style makes code blocks easier to edit
- **Tool compatibility**: Some tools work better with one style over another
- **Professional appearance**: Consistency shows attention to detail
## Examples
### ✅ Correct (Fenced style)
````markdown
Here's how to use our API:
```javascript
const api = require('our-api');
api.connect();
```
And here's the response format:
```json
{
"status": "success",
"data": {}
}
```
````
### ❌ Incorrect (Mixed styles)
````markdown
Here's how to use our API:
```javascript
const api = require('our-api');
api.connect();
```
And here's the response format:
{
"status": "success",
"data": {}
}
````
### 🔧 Fixed (Mixed styles)
````markdown
Here's how to use our API:
```javascript
const api = require('our-api');
api.connect();
```
And here's the response format:
```json
{
"status": "success",
"data": {}
}
```
````
### ❌ Incorrect (Unclosed code block)
````markdown
```javascript
const api = require('our-api');
api.connect();
Some text after the code that was meant to be outside the block.
````
### 🔧 Fixed (Unclosed code block)
````markdown
```javascript
const api = require('our-api');
api.connect();
```
Some text after the code that was meant to be outside the block.
````
### ❌ Incorrect (Missing closing fence before new block)
`````markdown
```javascript
const api = require('our-api');
api.connect();
```python
print("hello")
```
`````
### 🔧 Fixed (Missing closing fence before new block)
`````markdown
```javascript
const api = require('our-api');
api.connect();
```
```python
print("hello")
```
`````
## Configuration
```toml
[MD046]
style = "consistent" # Options: "consistent", "fenced", "indented"
```
### Style options
| `consistent` | All code blocks must use the same style (default) |
| `fenced` | All code blocks must use fenced style (``` or ~~~) |
| `indented` | All code blocks must use indented style (4 spaces) |
## Automatic fixes
When enabled, this rule will:
- Convert all code blocks to match your configured style
- Preserve code content and language identifiers
- Maintain proper spacing around blocks
- Close fenced code blocks that are missing a closing fence
- Insert closing fences when a new code block opens before the previous one is closed
## Style comparison
**Fenced code blocks** (recommended):
- Support syntax highlighting with language identifiers
- Easier to copy and paste
- More visible boundaries
**Indented code blocks**:
- Traditional Markdown style
- No language identifier support
- Must indent each line with 4 spaces or 1 tab
## Special cases
- Empty code blocks are ignored
- HTML `<pre>` and `<code>` tags are not affected
- When using "consistent", the most prevalent style is used (in case of a tie, fenced style is preferred as it's more widely supported)
- Per CommonMark, fenced code block openers (`` ``` `` or `~~~`) can only have 0-3 spaces of indentation. With 4+ spaces, the fence markers become literal content in an indented code block
- Unclosed-block detection is skipped in documents containing `markdown` or `md` code blocks, since these often include fence examples that would be misdetected
## Azure DevOps / Colon Fences
Under the `azure_devops` flavor, colon-style fences (`:::lang ... :::`) are
excluded from code block style detection. They are not counted toward the
dominant style and are never flagged as style violations. This prevents false
positives when a document mixes colon fences with backtick or tilde fences:
````markdown
::: mermaid
sequenceDiagram
Alice->>Bob: Hello
:::
```python
print("hello")
```
````
In this example, only the backtick fence counts for style detection. The colon
fence is treated as opaque block content and ignored by MD046.
Under any other flavor, colon fences are not recognized and do not affect style
detection.
See [Azure DevOps Flavor](flavors/azure_devops.md) for the full colon fence
specification.
## Learn more
- [CommonMark fenced code blocks](https://spec.commonmark.org/0.31.2/#fenced-code-blocks)
- [CommonMark indented code blocks](https://spec.commonmark.org/0.31.2/#indented-code-blocks)
- [GitHub Flavored Markdown](https://github.github.com/gfm/#code-blocks)
## Related rules
- [MD031](md031.md) - Add blank lines around code blocks
- [MD040](md040.md) - Specify languages for code blocks
- [MD048](md048.md) - Use consistent fence markers (backticks vs tildes)