# How we style our YAML

## YAML Style Guide

* 2️⃣ Indents should be two spaces
* ➡️ List items should be indented
* 🔠 List items with a single entry can be a string. For example, `'select': 'other_user'`, but it's best practice to provide the argument as an explicit list. For example, `'select': ['other_user']`
* 🆕 Use a new line to separate list items that are dictionaries where appropriate
* 📏 Lines of YAML should be no longer than 80 characters.
* 🛠️ Use the [dbt JSON schema](https://github.com/dbt-labs/dbt-jsonschema) with any compatible Studio IDE and a YAML formatter (we recommend [Prettier](https://prettier.io/)) to validate your YAML files and format them automatically.

Note, refer to [YAML tips](../../docs/build/dbt-tips.md#yaml-tips) for more YAML information.

info

☁️ As with Python and SQL, the Studio IDE comes with built-in formatting for YAML files (Markdown and JSON too!), via Prettier. Just click the `Format` button and you're in perfect style. As with the other tools, you can [also customize the formatting rules](../../docs/platform/studio-ide/lint-format.md#format-yaml-markdown-json) to your liking to fit your company's style guide.

### Example YAML

```yaml


models:
  - name: events
    columns:
      - name: event_id
        description: This is a unique identifier for the event
        data_tests:
          - unique
          - not_null

      - name: event_time
        description: "When the event occurred in UTC (eg. 2018-01-01 12:00:00)"
        data_tests:
          - not_null

      - name: user_id
        description: The ID of the user who recorded the event
        data_tests:
          - not_null
          - relationships:
              arguments: # available in v1.10.5 and higher. Older versions can set the <argument_name> as the top-level property.
                to: ref('users')
                field: id
```

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