Empty Linter - VSCode Extension

Detect and fix invisible Unicode artifacts in your code and text files.

Features

• Real-time Detection: Automatically scans documents for invisible characters (NBSP, ZWSP, BOM, NULL, etc.)
• Visual Highlighting: Highlights invisible characters with a distinct background color
• Quick Fixes: One-click fixes via Code Actions (lightbulb menu)
• Status Bar: Shows artifact count in the status bar
• Workspace Scanning: Scan entire workspace for invisible characters
• Configurable Severity: Customize how different artifact types are reported

Detected Artifacts

Critical (Security/Corruption Risk)

• NULL byte (U+0000)
• BOM (U+FEFF)
• Bidirectional text controls (CVE-2021-42574)

Error (Usually Unwanted)

• Non-Breaking Space (U+00A0)
• Zero Width Space (U+200B)
• Zero Width Joiner/Non-Joiner

Warning (Context Dependent)

• Soft Hyphen (U+00AD)
• Line/Paragraph Separators

Info (Exotic Spaces)

• En/Em Space, Thin Space, Hair Space
• Figure Space, Ideographic Space

Commands

• Empty Linter: Scan Current Document (Ctrl+Shift+E)
• Empty Linter: Fix Current Document (Ctrl+Shift+F)
• Empty Linter: Scan Workspace
• Empty Linter: Toggle Artifact Highlighting
• Empty Linter: Show Document Metrics

Configuration

{
  "emptyLinter.enabled": true,
  "emptyLinter.scanOnSave": true,
  "emptyLinter.scanOnOpen": true,
  "emptyLinter.autoFix": false,
  "emptyLinter.highlightArtifacts": true,
  "emptyLinter.severity.critical": "Error",
  "emptyLinter.severity.error": "Warning",
  "emptyLinter.severity.warning": "Information",
  "emptyLinter.severity.info": "Hint",
  "emptyLinter.excludePatterns": ["**/node_modules/**", "**/dist/**"],
  "emptyLinter.statusBar.show": true,
  "emptyLinter.statusBar.showMetrics": false
}

License

MPL-2.0

Credits

Part of the empty-linter project by Hyperpolymath.

Uses proven-verified artifact detection patterns.