Ark Format: Makefile

A safe formatting extension for Makefiles (Makefile, GNUmakefile, *.mk) in Visual Studio Code. Keep your Makefiles consistently formatted without ever breaking the strict whitespace rules of make.

🌍 Languages: English (this file) · Português

✨ Features

• 🎯 Full document formatting — format entire files with a single command
• ✏️ Selection formatting — format only the selected text
• 🎛️ Highly configurable — control conditional indentation, spacing, and formatting behavior
• 🌍 Multi-language UI — English (EN) and Brazilian Portuguese (PT-BR)
• 📋 .editorconfig support — respects project configuration (optional)
• 🛡️ Makefile-aware safety — TAB recipe prefix and define blocks are never broken
• ⚡ Optimized performance — fast and lightweight processing

🛡️ Safety Invariants

Makefiles have strict whitespace semantics. The formatter is built around invariants that guarantee it never changes what make executes:

• Recipe lines (TAB-prefixed) keep their prefix and their body is never modified — recipe content belongs to the shell.
• define ... endef blocks are preserved verbatim.
• Line continuations (\) are preserved; only whitespace after the backslash is trimmed.
• .RECIPEPREFIX: if the file redefines the recipe prefix, the document is left untouched (TAB detection no longer applies).

🚀 Getting Started

Install

• Open VSX: https://open-vsx.org/extension/tooark/ark-format-makefile
• VS Code Marketplace: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=tooark.ark-format-makefile

Or inside VS Code:

1. Open Extensions (Ctrl+Shift+X / Cmd+Shift+X)
2. Search for Ark Format: Makefile
3. Click Install

🧩 How to Use

Preview

Format a Full Document

• Press Shift+Alt+F (Windows/Linux) or Shift+Option+F (Mac)
• Or use the command: Editor: Format Document

Format a Selection

• Select the text you want to format
• Press Ctrl+K Ctrl+F (Windows/Linux) or Cmd+K Cmd+F (Mac)
• Or use the command: Editor: Format Selection

Tip: You can set Ark Format as the default formatter for Makefile files to ensure consistent formatting on save.

📄 Supported File Types

• Makefile - standard Makefile
• makefile - lowercase Makefile
• GNUmakefile - GNU Makefile
• *.mk — Make include files

⚙️ Configuration

Customize the formatter in settings.json:

{
  "arkFormatMakefile.enabled": true,
  "arkFormatMakefile.effectLanguages": ["makefile"],
  "arkFormatMakefile.useEditorConfig": false,
  "arkFormatMakefile.indentConditionals": true,
  "arkFormatMakefile.normalizeRecipePrefix": true,
  "arkFormatMakefile.alignAssignments": false,
  "arkFormatMakefile.indentSize": 2,
  "arkFormatMakefile.lineEnding": "LF",
  "arkFormatMakefile.trimTrailingWhitespace": true,
  "arkFormatMakefile.maxConsecutiveBlankLines": 1,
  "arkFormatMakefile.removeLeadingBlankLines": true,
  "arkFormatMakefile.insertFinalNewline": true,
  "arkFormatMakefile.collapseSpaces": true,
  "arkFormatMakefile.spacing.spaceAroundAssignment": true,
  "arkFormatMakefile.spacing.spaceAfterTargetColon": true,
  "arkFormatMakefile.spacing.spaceAfterCommentMarker": true,
  "arkFormatMakefile.rangeFormatting.enabled": true,
  "arkFormatMakefile.rangeFormatting.reindent": false,
  "arkFormatMakefile.rangeFormatting.useDocumentContext": true
}

Description of Settings

💡 Tips & Best Practices

• Use Selection Formatting to adjust only specific parts without affecting the rest of the file
• Configure .editorconfig in your project to maintain consistency between tools
• Combine with other formatting extensions for a complete workflow

🤝 Contributing

• Open an issue: Tooark/vscode-ark-format/issues
• Suggest improvements or report bugs with examples to help reproduction

💖 Support

If this extension helps your workflow, consider supporting its development:

• 💙 GitHub Sponsors
• ☕ Ko-fi
• 💸 PayPal

Every contribution helps keep the project maintained and improving. Thank you! 🙏

📝 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.