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YAML (YAML Ain't Markup Language)

YAML is a human-friendly data serialization language that uses indentation to represent structure. It is the preferred format for configuration files in DevOps tools (Docker Compose, Kubernetes, Ansible, GitHub Actions) and is a superset of JSON.

MIME Type

application/x-yaml

Type

Text

Compression

Lossless

Advantages

  • + Highly readable โ€” minimal syntax noise
  • + Supports comments for inline documentation
  • + Native in Docker, Kubernetes, Ansible, and CI/CD systems
  • + Superset of JSON โ€” any JSON is valid YAML

Disadvantages

  • โˆ’ Indentation-sensitive โ€” whitespace errors cause silent failures
  • โˆ’ Implicit type coercion can cause bugs ('yes' becomes boolean true)
  • โˆ’ More complex specification than JSON with anchors, tags, and directives

When to Use .YAML

Use YAML for configuration files, CI/CD pipelines, container orchestration, and any human-edited structured data.

Technical Details

YAML uses indentation (spaces, not tabs) for nesting, colons for key-value pairs, and hyphens for list items. It supports anchors (&) and aliases (*) for data reuse, multi-line strings, and comments.

History

Clark Evans, Ingy dot Net, and Oren Ben-Kiki created YAML in 2001. The recursive name stands for 'YAML Ain't Markup Language.' YAML 1.2 (2009) aligned the specification as a JSON superset.

Convert from .YAML

.yaml โ†’ .csv .yaml โ†’ .json .yaml โ†’ .ndjson .yaml โ†’ .sql .yaml โ†’ .toml .yaml โ†’ .tsv .yaml โ†’ .xml .yaml โ†’ .yml

Convert to .YAML

.csv โ†’ .yaml .json โ†’ .yaml .ndjson โ†’ .yaml .sql โ†’ .yaml .toml โ†’ .yaml .tsv โ†’ .yaml .xml โ†’ .yaml .yml โ†’ .yaml

Related Formats

.c .cpp .css .csv .go .java .js .json .jsx .less

Related Terms

YAML

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