TAML Language Support for Visual Studio

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Full language support for TAML (Tab Annotated Markup Language) files in Visual Studio.

Screenshot showing TAML syntax highlighting and editor features

What is TAML?

TAML is a minimal, tab-based markup language designed for simplicity and readability:

Tab-based hierarchy - One tab per indentation level (no spaces)
Tab-separated key-values - Keys and values separated by a single tab
Special values - ~ for null, "" for empty string
Comments - Lines starting with #
Human-readable - Clean, consistent formatting
LLM-optimized - Reduces token count for AI interactions

Example

# User configuration
name    John Doe
email    john@example.com
settings
    theme    dark    theme    dark
    notifications    true    notifications    true
    bio    ""    bio    ""
    nickname    ~    nickname    ~

Features

Syntax Highlighting

Full syntax highlighting support for .taml files that follows the official TAML specification. Colors distinguish between:

Keys - Property names
String values - Regular text values
Boolean values - true and false (highlighted distinctly)
Numeric values - Integers and decimals (e.g., 42, -3.14)
Null values - The ~ character
Empty strings - ""
Comments - Lines starting with #

IntelliSense

Get completion suggestions for TAML's special values when typing in value positions:

true / false - Boolean values
~ - Null value
"" - Empty string

Press Ctrl+Space in any value position to see available completions.

Error Detection

Real-time syntax validation with inline error messages and warnings displayed in the Error List window. Hover over any error to see detailed information about what went wrong. Detects issues per the TAML specification:

Space indentation (TAML requires tabs)
Mixed tabs and spaces
Inconsistent indentation (skipped levels)
Orphaned lines (indented after key-value pair)
Parent key with value and children
Empty keys

Document Formatting

Format your TAML documents with Edit > Advanced > Format Document (Ctrl+K, Ctrl+D) or format just a selection with Format Selection (Ctrl+K, Ctrl+F). The formatter ensures consistent tab-based indentation and proper key-value alignment.

Sort Keys

Place your cursor on any key that has child keys and use the lightbulb menu (Ctrl+.) to sort child keys alphabetically. This helps maintain consistent ordering in configuration files.

Quick Action

JSON Conversion

Right-click in a TAML file to access the TAML context menu with conversion options:

Copy as JSON - Converts the entire TAML document to JSON and copies it to the clipboard
Paste JSON as TAML - Pastes JSON from the clipboard and converts it to TAML format

The editor navigation bar shows a hierarchical dropdown of all keys in your document. Click any key to jump directly to it. Keys with children are displayed with indentation to show the document structure.

Navigation bar

Document Outline

Open the Document Outline window (View > Other Windows > Document Outline or Ctrl+Alt+O) to see a hierarchical tree view of all keys in your TAML file. Double-click or press Enter on any key to navigate to it. The outline automatically stays in sync with your cursor position in the editor.

Outlining/Code Folding

Collapse and expand nested sections using the outlining (code folding) feature. Keys with nested children can be collapsed to hide their contents.

Auto-Indentation

When you press Enter, the editor automatically maintains the indentation level of the current line. This makes it easy to add sibling keys at the same hierarchy level without manually typing tabs.

Options

Configure the extension behavior via Tools > Options > TAML > General.

Validation

Setting	Default	Description
Enable strict mode	Off	Report warnings for non-standard TAML syntax such as mixed indentation or spaces

Formatting

Setting	Default	Description
Align values	On	Align values at the same indentation level to the same column
Trim trailing whitespace	On	Remove trailing whitespace from lines
Ensure trailing newline	On	Ensure the document ends with a single newline
Preserve blank lines	On	Keep blank lines in the document
Tab size	4	The visual width of a tab character for alignment calculations (2-8)

Getting Started

Simply open any .taml file in Visual Studio, and the extension will automatically provide syntax highlighting and error detection.

Requirements

Visual Studio 2022 (17.0 or later)
Supports both x64 and ARM64 architectures

Learn More

TAML Specification - Official format specification
TamlTokenizer NuGet Package - The .NET library powering this extension

How can I help?

If you enjoy using the extension, please give it a ★★★★★ rating on the Visual Studio Marketplace.

Should you encounter bugs or have feature requests, head over to the GitHub repo to open an issue if one doesn't already exist.

Pull requests are also very welcome, as I can't always get around to fixing all bugs myself. This is a personal passion project, so my time is limited.

Another way to help out is to sponsor me on GitHub.

TAML

Mads Kristensen