# MD085 - Paragraph continuation lines should not be indented
Aliases: `paragraph-continuation-indent`
**Disabled by default.** This rule is opt-in: enable it explicitly with
`extend-enable`.
## What this rule does
Removes leading whitespace from every line of a top-level paragraph after the
first.
CommonMark strips that whitespace before rendering, so it never reaches the
output. It only survives in the source, where it makes otherwise identical
paragraphs look different depending on how they were edited.
The first line of a paragraph is never touched: its indentation is what decides
which block the paragraph is, so it is structure rather than free whitespace.
## Why this matters
- **Consistency**: The same paragraph reads the same way regardless of which
editor, wrapper, or paste produced it.
- **Reviewable diffs**: Re-wrapping a paragraph stops producing whitespace-only
changes on lines whose text did not move.
- **No rendered difference**: Because the renderer already discards it, removing
the indentation cannot change how the document looks.
## Examples
### Incorrect
```markdown
This is some paragraph
with line breaks
and indentation.
```
### Correct
```markdown
This is some paragraph
with line breaks
and indentation.
```
## Configuration
This rule has no options.
```toml
[global]
extend-enable = ["MD085"]
```
## What this rule leaves alone
Indentation is structural nearly everywhere else in Markdown, and removing it
would reparent or end the construct. The rule therefore only applies to
paragraphs that no container owns. It never touches:
- list item content, including lazy continuation lines
- blockquotes and their lazy continuation lines
- tables, footnote bodies and definition lists
- code blocks, both fenced and indented, and HTML, math and front matter blocks
- MkDocs admonitions and content tabs, Pandoc/Quarto divs, MyST directives and
the other flavor-specific containers
- the interior of a code span that spans more than one line, where the leading
whitespace is span content
- the interior of a template shortcode tag written over several lines, such as
`{{< figure` / ` title="..."` / `>}}`, which is one token to the renderer
Only spaces and tabs are removed. Other Unicode whitespace, such as a non-breaking
space or an ideographic space, renders as a visible character, so it is content
rather than indentation and stays where it is.
A continuation line indented four or more spaces *is* rewritten, because an
indented code block cannot interrupt a paragraph: those spaces are prose, and
removing them renders identically.
```markdown
This paragraph continues
with four spaces, which is still prose.
```
A continuation line that would start a block once its indentation is gone is left
alone, because there the indentation is the only thing keeping the line part of
the paragraph. That covers a line beginning with `#`, `>`, `-`, `+`, `*`, `_`,
`=`, `` ` ``, `~`, `<`, `|`, `[`, `{`, `:`, `$`, `!`, `%` or a digit. The list
does not depend on the flavor in force, because a document is often read by more
than one tool and a marker that is inert to one is structural to the next.
```markdown
This paragraph continues
- and this line stays indented, because at the margin it would become a list.
```
Everything under a line that begins with `<` is left alone until the next blank
line, because an HTML block runs to that blank line however its tags are arranged
and the whitespace inside it is the author's.
Hard line breaks are unaffected. The rule only removes leading whitespace, so a
two-space or backslash break at the end of the previous line survives.
## Automatic fixes
This rule removes the leading whitespace from each flagged line. Run:
```bash
rumdl check --fix yourfile.md
```
## Related rules
- [MD005 - Consistent list indentation](md005.md)
- [MD007 - Unordered list indentation](md007.md)
- [MD009 - No trailing spaces](md009.md)
- [MD013 - Line length](md013.md), whose reflow modes rewrap paragraphs as a whole
## Rationale
The rule is opt-in because the indentation is harmless: it renders identically
either way, and some authors add it deliberately to mark continuation lines in
the source. Projects that want a single source form for paragraphs can enable
it; projects that do not care lose nothing by leaving it off.