Write Better with Vale

Automate Your Style Guides and Lint Prose Like You Lint Code

by: Brian P. Hogan

Published 2025-12-18
Internal code bhvale
Print status In Print
Pages 90
User level Intermediate
Keywords vale;technical writing;style guides;documentation;computer-assisted writing;docs as code;writing for programmers;writing for software developers;developer education;docs teams;
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ISBN 9798888651810
Other ISBN Channel epub: 9798888651971
Channel PDF: 9798888651971
Kindle: 9798888651971
Safari: 9798888651971
Kindle: 9798888651971
BISACs TEC044000
COM085000
COM085000
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Create consistent content that gives readers confidence with Vale, the open-source prose linter that helps you enforce your style guide automatically. Use battle-tested rules based on freely available, popular style guides, apply your brand’s terms with a custom vocabulary, and integrate Vale into your text editor, Git hooks, and CI pipeline. Catch typos and inclusive-language issues before they ship, and spend your energy on shaping ideas instead of fixing copy. Whether you’re a technical writer working in a docs-as-code environment, or a software engineer who occasionally writes, you’ll ship clean, consistent copy every time.

Description

When you work on a content project, keeping things consistent can feel impossible. Typos slip through, people don’t follow style rules, and each contributor brings a slightly different voice. Vale helps you ensure consistency across your content.

You’ll start by catching typos as you learn how Vale works through hands-on examples. Then you’ll bring in community rules based on Google’s and Microsoft’s style guides. You’ll combine overlapping styles, adjust the rules to match your needs, and start shaping the experience you want readers to have. Then you’ll build your own rules from scratch and create a custom vocabulary to teach Vale to enforce your team’s voice and jargon. By the end, you’ll have a fully integrated, reusable style package that works in your editor, GitHub Actions, and your build systems. And while this book uses Markdown in its examples, you’ll be ready to apply everything you learned to reStructuredText, AsciiDoc, and even the comments in your source code.

Vale gives you a fast, reliable, and customizable way to keep your content consistent.

Contents and Extracts

Table of Contents