According to the YAML specification [^1]: - > An anchored node need not be referenced by any alias nodes This means that it's OK to declare anchors but don't have any alias referencing them. However users could want to avoid this, so a new option (e.g. `forbid-unused-anchors`) is implemented in this change. It is disabled by default. [^1]: https://yaml.org/spec/1.2.2/#692-node-anchors