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JSON is a terrible configuration file format. Property names must be quoted, tons of brackets and commas, a mistake comma breaks it, no comments allowed, etc..

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That makes it mediocre, not terrible. There are workarounds. For terrible, see sendmail.

JSON5 is a more reasonable format for config files, in my opinion.

I prefer YAML on my Markdown front matter. It's more readable because of no brackets, quotes, or commas.

> I prefer YAML on my Markdown front matter. It's more readable because of no brackets, quotes, or commas.

YAML is full of pitfalls. I think the brackets/braces and quotes are worth giving up a small amount readability to eliminate the ambiguity.

Seconding the sibling, YAML may look nice but it's absolutely full of awful confusing behavior. If you don't like JSON for human-written stuff, see TOML or the like. I think JSON is great for serialization, it's so simple, but I agree we need something more readable like TOML for human-written data.

https://ruudvanasseldonk.com/2023/01/11/the-yaml-document-fr...

Do you convert your Markdown front matter to TOML? Also for your clients?

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