In an issue form, same footnote / link definition anchor ID in different textareas previewed independently but not kept distinct after creation

[PtJade-Ceramic]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Issues

Body

Description

When a contributor is filling an issue form, they might create footnotes and/or link reference definitions in different textareas with the same anchor ID.

When they switch to Preview, the footnotes and link reference definitions in different textareas look independent, but after clicking Create they will find that all footnotes and/or link references sharing the same anchor ID link to the first anchor appearing in the source code. Subsequent ones, whether in the same textarea or in different ones, will be ignored.

Expected behavior

Live validate the uniqueness of anchor definitions globally among all textareas. When the "same anchor, multiple definition" occurs, warn the user and even block the issue from being created and ask for further decision, e.g. either…

• ignore this problem and create as-is, or
• wait for the user to resolve the conflict(s), or
• automatically distinguish the anchors (e.g. by adding different suffixes)

Actual behavior

See Description.

Steps to reproduce

Caution

You will create a real issue. Do this with a repo experimental for only this issue to prevent polluting existing repos.

1. While creating a repo, set it as private to prevent concern from others
2. Make sure issues are enabled
3. Create an issue form containing at least 2 required textareas
4. While creating an issue from the repo with the issue form just created, create footnotes in at least 2 textareas with the same anchor ID. Before clicking Create, click Preview for each textarea and look at them
5. Click Create and look at the footnotes

Guidelines

• I have read the above statement and can confirm my post is relevant to the GitHub feature areas Issues and/or Projects.

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[adrienblake530]

Hello,

Thank you for reporting this issue and providing clear reproduction steps.

This appears to be an inconsistency between how GitHub renders Markdown footnotes in individual issue form previews and how it processes them after the issue is submitted.

Why this happens:

Each textarea is previewed independently, so footnotes with identical identifiers appear to work correctly. However, when the issue is created, GitHub combines the textarea contents into a single Markdown document.

As a result, duplicate footnote identifiers can conflict, causing multiple references to point to the first matching definition.

Suggested workaround:

Until this behavior is addressed, use unique footnote identifiers across all textareas in the same issue form.

For example:

• First textarea: [^description-1]
• Second textarea: [^steps-1]
• Third textarea: [^notes-1]

This should prevent conflicts when the final issue body is rendered.

Suggested improvement:

GitHub could improve this experience by either:

1. Warning users about duplicate footnote identifiers across different textareas before submission.
2. Automatically assigning unique identifiers when combining issue form fields.
3. Rendering the complete issue body in a final preview so users can identify formatting conflicts.

My recommendation: A full-body preview before submission would provide the most predictable experience, since it would show exactly how the final issue will appear.

One question: Does this issue occur only with footnotes, or have you noticed similar inconsistencies with other Markdown references across multiple textareas?

This could help determine whether the problem is specific to footnote handling or affects Markdown rendering more broadly.

Thanks again for documenting this behavior!

[PtJade-Ceramic]

Later I have found this also happening to link reference definitions.

FYI see the update.