[jasonjckn]

This is one of two alternative PRs for the same problem: #167 leaves docstring text alone (like cljfmt), #168 indents docstrings like clojure-mode. Please merge at most one; we'll close the other.

• Docstring indentation, option A (pick one of #167/#168): leave docstring text alone, like cljfmt #167 (this PR): indent-region never re-indents lines inside a docstring. Removes a rule.
• Docstring indentation, option B (pick one of #167/#168): indent docstrings like clojure-mode #168: indent-region applies clojure-mode's docstring rule, with and without Markdown. Adds a rule for both parsers.

indent-region changes the text of docstrings, and how it changes them depends on clojure-ts-use-markdown-inline and on whether the markdown-inline grammar is installed. With Markdown on, only the closing " moves. With Markdown off, every line moves to the opening quote's column + 1, which flattens indented code examples and undoes what M-q just did.

This PR removes the docstring indentation rule, so indent-region leaves every line inside a docstring as it is, in both settings. This is what cljfmt does.

Background

We found this by comparing clojure-mode's and clojure-ts-mode's indent-region over 73 real-world files (as-is, and with indentation stripped), using a formatter that runs indent-region in batch Emacs.

What each tool does to a line inside a top-level docstring:

Line	cljfmt 0.16.6	clojure-mode 5.19, fontified buffer	clojure-ts-mode main, markdown-inline on (default)	clojure-ts-mode main, markdown-inline off
content at col 0	unchanged	→ col 2	unchanged	→ col 3
content at col 4 (code example)	unchanged	unchanged	unchanged	→ col 3
closing " at col 0	unchanged	→ col 2	→ col 2 (quote column)	→ col 2
line M-q just filled (col 2)	unchanged	unchanged	unchanged	→ col 3
protocol-method docstring	unchanged	unchanged	closing " → quote col	content → quote col + 1, closing " → quote col
ordinary (non-doc) string	unchanged	unchanged	unchanged	unchanged

• clojure-mode only indents docstring lines when clojure-in-docstring-p is true, and that checks for font-lock-doc-face. So in an unfontified (batch) buffer clojure-mode never touches docstrings and looks like cljfmt; in a normal fontified buffer it moves lines indented less than clojure-docstring-fill-prefix-width to that column and keeps deeper lines.
• History: docstring indentation was added on purpose in 177ac05 ("Indent within docstrings - not working 100%"). The Markdown injection in Jank Support #23 (a16c6b4) moved docstring content into the markdown-inline parser, and the rule's comment now says it "only matches … when Markdown grammar is disabled".
• Mechanism: with Markdown on, treesit-language-at a content line is markdown-inline, and treesit-simple-indent-rules has only a clojure entry, so those lines are left alone. The closing " belongs to the Clojure parser (parent str_lit), so clojure-ts--match-docstring fires and anchors it at the opening quote.
• M-q: clojure-ts--fill-paragraph uses clojure-ts-docstring-fill-prefix-width (2) spaces from column 0, like clojure-mode. With Markdown off, indent-region then moves those lines to column 3.

This PR matches cljfmt, and clojure-mode in unfontified/batch use. #168 matches clojure-mode in normal fontified buffers instead.

Examples

Input:

(defn example
  "Summary.
content
    (code example)

"
  []
  :ok)

clojure-ts-mode main, markdown-inline on:

(defn example
  "Summary.
content
    (code example)

  "
  []
  :ok)

clojure-ts-mode main, markdown-inline off:

(defn example
  "Summary.
   content
   (code example)

  "
  []
  :ok)

With this PR (either setting), and cljfmt (same as the input):

(defn example
  "Summary.
content
    (code example)

"
  []
  :ok)

clojure-mode 5.19, fontified buffer:

(defn example
  "Summary.
  content
    (code example)

  "
  []
  :ok)

Tests

This PR adds a Docstring indentation group, run once with clojure-ts-use-markdown-inline nil and once with t (the t case is skipped with assume when the markdown-inline grammar isn't installed):

• should preserve every docstring line: fails on main in both settings, passes with this PR.
• should preserve protocol-method docstrings: fails on main in both settings, passes with this PR.
• should preserve ordinary strings: a control; passes on main and with this PR.

How it was checked locally (Eldev isn't installed here, so these are the same steps run directly):

• The full buttercup suite passes (0 failed) on Emacs 32.0.50 and 31.1.50. No Emacs 30.x was available locally, so it hasn't been run on CI's 30.1.
• Byte-compiling with byte-compile-error-on-warn gives no warnings; checkdoc is clean; the changed .el files are indented as emacs-lisp-mode indents them.

Notes

• This drops the feature added in 177ac05: docstrings are no longer indented at all. M-q still fills docstrings with clojure-ts-docstring-fill-prefix-width.
• clojure-ts--match-docstring stays, since clojure-ts--fill-paragraph uses it. No other indent rule matches a line inside a docstring.
• The removed rule was the one the code called the slowest.

About this PR

The code, tests and this description were generated by an AI (Claude, by Anthropic), at @jasonjckn's request. If AI-generated contributions are a problem for this project, please feel free to close this PR and #168 right away.

---

• The commits are consistent with our contribution guidelines.
• You've run M-x checkdoc and fixed any warnings in the code you've written.
• You've updated the changelog (if adding/changing user-visible functionality).
• You've updated the readme (if adding/changing user-visible functionality).

[bbatsov]

Closing in favor of #168, which indents docstrings the way clojure-mode does.