Heading Colon Capitalization Rule

This rule ensures proper capitalization after colons in headings. It enforces the standard writing practice of capitalizing the first word that follows a colon in a heading. This convention improves readability and maintains professional consistency in documentation, following Microsoft's style guidelines.

Examples:

✗ Incorrect:

Project Timeline: design phase begins
Features: implementing new modules

✓ Correct:

Project Timeline: Design phase begins
Features: Implementing new modules

The rule specifically:

  • Looks for a colon followed by a space and a lowercase letter (:\s[a-z])
  • Only checks within headings (defined by scope: heading)
  • Raises an error-level alert when found
  • Applies to any content structure that Vale recognizes as a heading

Rule Source

This rule comes from: https://github.com/mesosphere/dcos-docs-site

Rule Definition

extends: existence
message: "Capitalize '%s'."
link: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/style-guide/punctuation/colons
nonword: true
level: error
scope: heading
tokens:
  - ':\s[a-z]'