Microsoft/vscode

makefile / Markdown syntax highlighting quirks

Open

#264,195 opened on Aug 31, 2025

View on GitHub
 (3 comments) (0 reactions) (1 assignee)TypeScript (74,848 stars) (10,221 forks)batch import
help wantedmarkdown-extupstream

Description

Does this issue occur when all extensions are disabled?: Yes/No

  • VS Code Version: 1.103.2
  • OS Version: macOS Sequoia

Steps to Reproduce:

default: # Entrypoint
	echo "Hello, World!"

The trailing comment # Entrypoint should render as a comment in VSCode makefiles, including in markdown blocks with the code type set to make.

Instead, VSCode renders GFM code snippets as plain text.

And Markdown previews render default: # Entrypoint as one continuous target name. Including the colon (:) token.

Markdown previews also corrupt backslash (\) escaped multiline expressions.

Contributor guide

Tech stack
typescript
Domain
frontenddeveloper experience
Issue type
bug
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
3
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
1-3 hours
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
blocked
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
clear
Prerequisites
Basic makefile syntaxVS Code grammar file structureMarkdown preview rendering
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
30
Research direction
Investigate the makefile grammar file (likely in extensions/make/) to ensure the `#` comment pattern is correctly tokenized. Also examine the Markdown preview code in extensions/markdown language features/ to see how code blocks are rendered. Check if there is a TextMate grammar issue or a CSS issue in the preview. Look at existing PRs or comments for related fixes.