Don't indent <head> & <body> #14761

Hi, @Potherca!

I think this is exactly the kind of case where a Prettier plugin is the right escape hatch.

I agree that this probably should not become a new core Prettier option. But if a project wants a specific formatting rule like “do not indent <head> and <body> under <html>”, then the practical solution is to move that decision into a custom printer.

This is basically what I did in @poliklot/prettier-plugin-handlebars.

It is a Prettier plugin for HTML-heavy classic Handlebars templates. It registers its own parser and printer:

export const parsers = {
  handlebars: {
    parse,
    astFormat: "handlebars-ast",
    locStart,
    locEnd,
  },
};

export const printers = {
  "handlebars-ast": printer,
};

The important part is that the printer owns the formatting decisions. So things like element indentation, attribute formatting, blank lines, raw text handling, script / style, prettier-ignore, etc. are not controlled by extra Prettier core options — they are implemented in the plugin printer.

For your exact case, I would solve it in the same way: write a small Prettier plugin / custom printer rule that treats root-level <html>, <head>, and <body> the way your project wants.

You could also try using my plugin for HTML-like files by explicitly mapping those files to its parser, but keep in mind that this is not a drop-in replacement for Prettier’s built-in HTML formatter. It may change more than just <head> / <body> indentation. Personally, I like its formatting for HTML-heavy templates, but if the output does not match your project style, the better option is to use it as a reference and make a much smaller plugin that only solves this specific indentation rule.

I don’t think there are many other good options that fit Prettier’s philosophy:

• adding a core option: unlikely / against Prettier’s option philosophy;
• prettier-ignore: okay for one-off cases, not great project-wide;
• post-processing formatted HTML: possible, but more fragile;
• plugin / custom printer: the cleanest approach for project-specific formatting rules.

For more examples, the official Prettier plugins page has a list of community plugins:

https://prettier.io/docs/plugins#community-plugins

Hope this helps!