Typos Check for Common Misspellings in Markdown
The Typos check scans the Markdown you changed for common, high-confidence misspellings: the kind of slip that no reader should have to stumble over. It is deliberately narrow: it only reacts to words that look like a known typo, so it rarely gets in the way of valid SAP, industry, or partner terminology.
What this check does
When your pull request touches Markdown under docs/ or news/, this check runs the typos binary (pinned to version 1.50.3) over the files you added or modified. If it finds a likely misspelling, it flags it and the check fails.
Because it is scoped to changed files only, it never flags pre-existing typos elsewhere in the project. You are responsible for the lines you touched, and nothing more.
The check is triggered by changes to any of these paths:
| Path | What it covers |
|---|---|
docs/**/*.md, docs/**/*.mdx | Reference architectures and community docs |
news/**/*.md, news/**/*.mdx | News articles |
_typos.toml | The check's own configuration |
.github/workflows/check-typos.yml | The workflow definition |
How it differs from the spelling check
This is the single most important thing to understand about Typos, especially if you have already met the Spelling check (cspell).
typos only flags words that closely resemble a known misspelling: for example recieve → receive, or teh → the. It does not flag a word simply because the word is unfamiliar.
That means an unusual-but-correct product name, acronym, or technical term (the kind of word that cspell might not recognise) will almost always pass straight through Typos untouched. There is no need to register SAP product names, partner names, or industry jargon here just because they are uncommon.
Think of it this way:
| Check | Reacts to | Typical fix |
|---|---|---|
| Typos (this page) | Words that look like a known misspelling | Correct the spelling, or allow a wrongly corrected real term |
| Spelling (cspell) | Words that are unknown to its dictionaries | Add the valid term to a custom dictionary |
Where results appear
If Typos finds something, it does three things:
- Fails the check, which blocks the pull request until it is resolved.
- Adds inline annotations on the Files changed tab of your PR, right on the offending line. These annotations carry the title "Typos".
- Writes a job summary listing every typo it found.
Unlike some other checks, Typos does not post into the sticky summary comment on your PR. Look for its findings as inline annotations on the Files changed tab, or open the check's job summary.
Configuration (_typos.toml)
The check reads its rules from _typos.toml at the repository root. Here are the parts worth knowing about.
Locale
[default]
locale = "en"
The en locale is variant-neutral: both en-US and en-GB spellings are accepted, so you will not be pushed from colour to color or vice versa. (typos supports a single locale value, and en is the neutral one.)
Allowing a word with extend-words
Occasionally typos will "correct" a word that is actually valid in our context. To stop that, you map the word to itself under [default.extend-words]. Keys are lowercase.
[default.extend-words]
advices = "advices" # "remittance advices", a valid accounting term
rto = "rto" # Recovery Time Objective
alo = "alo" # At-Least-Once (delivery QoS)
aks = "aks" # Azure Kubernetes Service
aci = "aci" # Azure Container Instance
Only add an entry when typos wrongly corrects a real term. There is no need to pre-register valid vocabulary here. That proactive, exhaustive job belongs to the custom dictionaries used by the spelling check.
Leaving identifiers alone
[default.extend-identifiers]
The extend-identifiers section is for identifier-like tokens (code symbols or names) that typos should never touch. It is currently empty.
Excluded files
[files]
extend-exclude = [
"*.min.js",
"*.lock",
"*.svg",
"*.drawio",
"docs/ref-arch/RA0000/",
"docs/community/02-Guidelines/08-Automated-Checks/01-check-spelling.md",
"docs/community/02-Guidelines/08-Automated-Checks/02-dictionaries.md",
"docs/community/02-Guidelines/08-Automated-Checks/03-check-typos.md",
"docs/community/02-Guidelines/08-Automated-Checks/13-pr-checks-errors-and-warnings.md",
]
| Pattern | Why it is excluded |
|---|---|
*.min.js | Minified JavaScript, not prose |
*.lock | Dependency lock files |
*.svg | Vector graphics markup |
*.drawio | Draw.io diagram source (see the Draw.io Files check and the diagramming guide) |
docs/ref-arch/RA0000/ | The new-RA template, which holds Latin lorem-ipsum placeholder text |
| The Automated Checks pages that show example misspellings (including this one) | They must display real misspellings such as recieve and teh as examples. typos has no per-line ignore, so the whole file is excluded here. cspell still scans these pages, with a scoped cspell:ignore for just the example words |
How to fix a reported typo
You have two paths, depending on who is right: you or the tool.
1. It really is a typo
Correct the spelling in your Markdown and push again. The inline annotation tells you the exact file, line, and suggested correction.
docs/ref-arch/my-architecture/index.md:42:8: error: `recieve` should be `receive`
Change recieve to receive, commit, and the check turns green.
2. It is a valid term being wrongly corrected
If typos is flagging a word that is genuinely correct in our content, add it to extend-words in _typos.toml, mapping it to itself.
For example, suppose a page legitimately uses the accounting term remittance advices and typos tries to "fix" advices. The allowance looks like this:
[default.extend-words]
advices = "advices" # "remittance advices", a valid accounting term
Add a word to _typos.toml only when typos is actively wrongly correcting it. If instead the Spelling check reports a word as unknown, that word belongs in a custom dictionary, not here. The two lists solve different problems.
Where this fits
Typos is one of several automated checks that run on your contribution. For the full picture, see the Automated Checks overview, and for what to do when a check reports a problem, read Errors & Warnings.
New to contributing? Start with the community intro, the contribution process, and, for new reference architectures, the no-code Quick Start editor.