# Front Matter

Learn how Vale handles front matter.

Linting front matter fields is supported in Markdown, AsciiDoc, reStructuredText, MDX, and Org files.

There are 3 supported front matter types – YAML, TOML, and JSON:

![Front Matter Formats](/files/830ee75605f7ba7f0d5a158b3f9461b7e9552445)

Each field is dynamically assigned its own scope, allowing you to write rules that target specific ones:

```yaml
---
title: 'My document'
description: "A short summary of the document's purpose."
author: 'John Doe'
---
```

Using the example above, the generated scopes would be `text.frontmatter.title`, `text.frontmatter.description`, and `text.frontmatter.author`.

A rule can then use these in its `scope:` field:

```yaml
extends: capitalization
message: "'%s' should be in title case"
level: warning
scope: text.frontmatter.title
```

This rule would then only be applied to the `title` field in the front matter.

[Markdown](/formats/markdown.md)


---

# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://docs.vale.sh/formats/front-matter.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.