Wrong indentation when editing Yaml in Vim

Install this plugin:

https://github.com/chase/vim-ansible-yaml

It is made with Ansible in mind, but in theory it will work with all kinds of YAML files. You will have to :set filetype=ansible unfortunately, if you are not working with ansible related files.


You can use this autocommand to make Vim properly indent YAML files (put it to your .vimrc):

" Fix auto-indentation for YAML files
augroup yaml_fix
    autocmd!
    autocmd FileType yaml setlocal ts=2 sts=2 sw=2 expandtab indentkeys-=0# indentkeys-=<:>
augroup END

Basically, for YAML file it instructs Vim to:

  • Use 2 spaces for indentation.
  • Use spaces instead of tabs.
  • Skip re-indenting lines after inserting a comment character (#) at the beginning of a line, or a colon.

You can disable reindent when you type : key:

:set indentkeys-=<:>

Please edit ~/.vimrc file, and add these lines:

filetype plugin indent on
autocmd FileType yaml setl indentkeys-=<:>

Note: autocmd comes after filetype.

You can trigger reindent by typing CTRL-F in INSERT mode, for example:

hello: world
    foo: bar<C-F>

In order to get the nice 2-space YAML as the default when I hit carriage return after the colon, I added this to my .vimrc:

autocmd FileType yaml setlocal ts=2 sts=2 sw=2 expandtab

This also plays nice with the dash for the OP's expected result.

Tags:

Vim

Yaml

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