bug: Rendering links inside checked checkbox

[d4rkd3v1l]

Neovim version (nvim -v)

0.11.4

Neovim distribution

LazyVim

Operating system

macOS

Terminal emulator / GUI

Ghostty

Describe the bug

When using a wiki link inside a checked checkbox item, the "checked" highlight group is not applied to the wiki icon.
Doing the same on a regular (web) link, additionally the highlight group is not applied to the text portion of the link as well.
I already tried to debug this and look into the code myself, but I'm totally lost as I'm a complete noob regarding lua, nvim and its highlight group system. Also using :InspectTree didn't really work out for debugging, as I only see the unrendered stuff there, I guess.
However, any help is highly appreciated.

Raw text:

- [ ] Unchecked
- [x] Checked
- [ ] [[unchecked]]
- [x] [[checked]]
- [ ] <https://unchecked>
- [x] <https://checked>

Expected behavior

I expect, that on a checked checkbox item, the "checked" highlight group is applied to everything.

Healthcheck output

==============================================================================
render-markdown:                                                    3 ⚠️  1 ❌

render-markdown.nvim [versions] ~
- ✅ OK neovim >= 0.11
- ✅ OK tree-sitter ABI: 15
- ✅ OK plugin: 8.7.15

render-markdown.nvim [configuration] ~
- ❌ ERROR checkbox.position - expected: nil, got: string

render-markdown.nvim [tree-sitter markdown] ~
- ✅ OK parser: installed
- ✅ OK ABI: 14
- ✅ OK highlights: ~/.local/share/nvim/lazy/nvim-treesitter/queries/markdown/highlights.scm
- ✅ OK highlighter: enabled

render-markdown.nvim [tree-sitter markdown_inline] ~
- ✅ OK parser: installed
- ✅ OK ABI: 14
- ✅ OK highlights: ~/.local/share/nvim/lazy/nvim-treesitter/queries/markdown_inline/highlights.scm

render-markdown.nvim [tree-sitter html] ~
- ✅ OK parser: installed
- ✅ OK ABI: 14

render-markdown.nvim [tree-sitter latex] ~
- ⚠️ WARNING parser: not installed
  - ADVICE:
    - disable latex support to avoid this warning
    - require('render-markdown').setup({ latex = { enabled = false } })
- ⚠️ WARNING ABI: unknown
  - ADVICE:
    - disable latex support to avoid this warning
    - require('render-markdown').setup({ latex = { enabled = false } })

render-markdown.nvim [tree-sitter yaml] ~
- ✅ OK parser: installed
- ✅ OK ABI: 14

render-markdown.nvim [icons] ~
- ✅ OK using: mini.icons

render-markdown.nvim [executables] ~
- ⚠️ WARNING latex2text: not installed
  - ADVICE:
    - disable latex support to avoid this warning
    - require('render-markdown').setup({ latex = { enabled = false } })

render-markdown.nvim [conflicts] ~
- ✅ OK headlines: not installed
- ✅ OK markview: not installed
- ✅ OK obsidian: not installed

Plugin configuration

checkbox = {
    checked = {
      icon = "   󰄲 ",
      scope_highlight = "RenderMarkdownChecked"
    },
    custom = {
      todo = {
        rendered = "   󰥔 "
      }
    },
    position = "inline",
    unchecked = {
      icon = "   󰄱 "
    }
  },
  code = {
    border = "none",
    inline_pad = 1,
    language_pad = 1,
    right_pad = 1,
    sign = false,
    width = "block"
  },
  file_types = {
    [2] = "norg",
    [3] = "rmd",
    [4] = "org",
    [5] = "codecompanion"
  },
  heading = {
    icons = { "󰎤 ", "󰎧 ", "󰎪 ", "󰎭 ", "󰎱 ", "󰎳 " },
    right_pad = 1,
    sign = false,
    width = "block"
  },
  link = {
    custom = {
      youtube2 = {
        icon = "󰗃 ",
        pattern = "youtu%.be"
      }
    },
    wiki = {
      body = <function 1>
    }
  },
  pipe_table = {
    border_enabled = false,
    style = "normal"
  },
  win_options = {
    conceallevel = {
      default = 0
    }
  }

Plugin error log

N/A

Confirmations

• I have updated this plugin to the latest version using my plugin manager
• I have provided the text contained in all screenshots as raw text in this issue. This means if there is a screenshot below it is the copy pasted contents of the file in the screenshot. I understand that my issue will be closed if I have not.

Additional information

No response

[MeanderingProgrammer]

The highlight group for a link icon (wiki link or otherwise) is going to come from the link related settings, and not the context the link is in like being part of a checked checkbox. This is the intended behavior, doing anything else would make things much more complicated since everything would need to become context aware, which I don't intend on doing. Decisions are essentially made "in-place", something like ah this is a wiki link, let me figure out what icon and highlight group to use.

You can modify the color of the text within different checkbox states by setting a scope_highlight value which should also override the link text color but the icons will remain the same color. For example:

vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, 'TempRed', { fg = 'red' })
require('render-markdown').setup({
    checkbox = { checked = { scope_highlight = 'TempRed' } },
})

This will make the text / links in a checked checkbox red, but the icon will still be the cyan color.

[d4rkd3v1l]

Thanks for your quick follow up and your explanation. The icon things makes sense for me.
However I did some more investigation and found out that:

• wiki links [[reference]] work reliably
• markdown links text work reliably
• autolinks work only sometimes (see screenshot and attached video, here I switched back and forth between normal and insert modes, sometimes works, most times not)

Screen.Recording.2025-09-08.at.20.11.47.mov

[MeanderingProgrammer]

Ah, thanks for letting me know! That is a bug on my end. Fixed here: 7fd9116

For autolinks this plugin sets the highlight group for the body, whereas for other link types that is done by treesitter highlights. As a result the body highlight and the scope highlight had the same default priority and would get selected randomly at runtime. I set a lower priority value for the autolink body, so now the scope value will always be preferred.