New Rule: no-emphasis-as-heading

[FloEdelmann]

Rule details

Prevent emphasized (i.e. bold or italic) text used to separate sections, where a heading should be used instead

What type of rule is this?

Warns about a potential problem

Example code

Bad:

**My document**

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...

_Another section_

Consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod.

Good:

# My document

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...

## Another section

Consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod.

Prior Art

Markdownlint rule MD036 (no-emphasis-as-heading): https://github.com/DavidAnson/markdownlint/blob/main/doc/md036.md

Participation

• I am willing to submit a pull request to implement this rule.

AI acknowledgment

• I did not use AI to generate this issue report.
• (If the above is not checked) I have reviewed the AI-generated content before submitting.

Additional comments

No response

[lumirlumir]

Thank you for opening an issue. Since remark-lint has the same rule, remark-lint-no-emphasis-as-heading, and we’ve generally accepted rules with prior art, I think this suggestion makes sense. It’s also not a stylistic rule and is intended to improve accessibility.

I can work on it, and I’ll leave this open for a bit before marking it as accepted to gather more inputs.

[lumirlumir]

I see two agreements on this suggestion, but could I get one more before marking it as accepted? @eslint/eslint-team

[lumirlumir]

TSC Summary: This issue proposes adding a no-emphasis-as-heading rule to report standalone bold or italic text used in place of Markdown headings. Similar rules exist in markdownlint and remark-lint, and the rule would improve document structure and accessibility.

TSC Question: Should we accept this proposal and add the rule to @eslint/markdown, or leave this pattern unreported?