Howtos for The Rest of Us

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Markdown Styling

No explicit horizontal rules

Do not add standalone --- horizontal rules as section separators. They render too thick in the terminal and most viewers. If the source material has a structural <hr>, preserve it - but don’t inject new ones.

Box-drawing: single only, no double

Use single-line box-drawing characters (┌, ─, ┐, │, └, ┘, ├, ┤, ┬, ┴, ┼) for diagrams and code-block art. Avoid double-line variants (╔, ═, ╗, ║, ╚, ╝, ╠, ╣, ╦, ╩, ╬) - they render too thick and look heavy in markdown.

Verify box-drawing alignment

After drawing or editing a box diagram, verify:

  1. All lines are the same width - count the total character length of each line in the code block. A single line off by one breaks the whole box.
  2. Arrow connectors align - the center T-junction (┬, ┴, ┼) on the box edge must line up with the vertical pipe (│) and arrow (▼, ▲) between boxes. Count spaces from the left edge.
  3. Inner padding is consistent - headers should be roughly centered, list items uniformly indented.
  4. No stray characters - verify box corners match: every ┌ has a ┐, every └ has a ┘, every ├ has a corresponding ┤.

Run a quick length check on the diagram lines before committing.

After centering, verify by eye that the right border (┐, ┤, ┘) stacks vertically across all lines - if any line’s border is shifted left or right, the padding is wrong. A common gotcha: a 12-char header in a 22-wide box needs 5+12+5 padding, not 4+12+6.

General preferences