Developers lose YAML comments and layout when editing values
Developers maintaining hand-formatted YAML want to change specific values without disturbing comments, blank lines, or other layout. The signals describe command-line transformations that rewrite more of a file than intended, as well as the tedious, error-prone work of checking indentation when copying YAML between files. A focused tool could preserve untouched source formatting while applying targeted edits.
For developers maintaining hand-formatted YAML configuration. Mentioned from May 2018 to Mar 2025 on GitHub, Hacker News and Stack Exchange.
4 different people described this problem in 4 separate discussions.
- Indie fit
- 6.0/10
- Pain
- 6.0/10
- Frequency
- 5.8/10
- Willingness to pay
- 0.0/10
- Momentum
- 5.0/10
- Who pays
- Professionals
- Competition
- Medium
- Build difficulty
- Medium
What people said
Quoted word for word. Follow a link to read the whole discussion.
The yq tool is great, but it does not preserve whitespace and changes formatting of files outside of the intended change
I my case the removal of blanks introduced by were unfortunately unacceptable, so i had to dig further. And found a solution
Build brief
See what to build and who will buy it
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- 2 more quotes from people who have this problem
- Current workarounds, existing solutions and risks