---
title: "Auto-fix Markdown formatting"
summary: >-
  `mdsmith fix` rewrites whitespace, headings, code fences, bare URLs,
  list indentation, and table alignment in place, looping up to 10
  passes and stopping when edits stabilize. `mdsmith check` is the
  read-only CI sibling.
icon: wrench
link: "/reference/cli/fix/"
weight: 1
group: "Clean, consistent Markdown"
---
# Auto-fix Markdown formatting

`mdsmith fix` is the write side of the linter. It rewrites
trailing whitespace, heading style, code-fence delimiters, bare
URLs, list indentation, and table alignment directly in the file.

The fixer runs as a fixed-point loop: it applies every fixable
rule, re-parses, and repeats until the document stops changing or
it has run ten passes. Stabilization means one fix never undoes
another.

Paragraph reflow is the one fix that stays off by default. Set
`rules.line-length.reflow: true` to let `mdsmith fix` rewrap
over-long prose paragraphs to the `max` width. The wrap is
abbreviation-aware — it never breaks `e.g.` or initials such as
`J. R. R. Tolkien` across lines — and it leaves headings, lists,
tables, code, and generated sections untouched.

`mdsmith check` runs the same rules without writing. It is the
read-only sibling for CI, returning a non-zero exit code when any
rule fails so a pipeline can block the merge.

See the [`fix`](../reference/cli/fix.md) and
[`check`](../reference/cli/check.md) command references for flags
and exit codes.