Unnumbered Sections

Some sections in specifications—like Abstract and Status of This Document (SOTD)—should appear in the Table of Contents without a section number. Speculator supports marking sections as “unnumbered” so they don’t increment the TOC counter.

How It Works

When a section is marked as unnumbered:

1. It appears in the TOC without a number
2. Subsequent numbered sections continue from where numbering left off
3. The section is not included in document.computed.headingNumbers

Example Output

Given this structure:

Abstract (unnumbered)
Status of This Document (unnumbered)
Introduction
Methods

The TOC will display:

     Abstract
     Status of This Document
1.   Introduction
2.   Methods

HTML Syntax

Add one of the following CSS classes to your <section> element:

<!-- Using 'unnumbered' class -->
<section id="abstract" class="unnumbered">
  <h1>Abstract</h1>
  <p>This section is unnumbered in the TOC.</p>
</section>

<!-- Using 'informative' class (implies unnumbered) -->
<section id="sotd" class="informative">
  <h1>Status of This Document</h1>
  <p>This section is also unnumbered.</p>
</section>

<!-- Using 'introductory' class (implies unnumbered) -->
<section id="intro-note" class="introductory">
  <h1>About This Spec</h1>
  <p>Also unnumbered.</p>
</section>

Supported Class Names

Class	Effect
unnumbered	Explicitly marks section as unnumbered
informative	Non-normative section (also unnumbered)
introductory	Introductory content (also unnumbered)

Markdown Syntax

Use the {.unnumbered} suffix on headings:

# Abstract {.unnumbered}

This is an unnumbered abstract.

# Status {.unnumbered}

This is also unnumbered.

# Introduction

This should be numbered as "1".

# Methods

This should be "2".

The {.unnumbered} suffix is automatically stripped from the heading text in the output.

Nested Unnumbered Sections

You can mark nested sections as unnumbered without affecting sibling numbering:

<section id="main">
  <h1>Main Content</h1>

  <section id="note" class="unnumbered">
    <h2>Informative Note</h2>
    <p>This subsection is unnumbered.</p>
  </section>

  <section id="details">
    <h2>Implementation Details</h2>
    <p>This is numbered as 2.1 (not 2.2).</p>
  </section>
</section>

The TOC for this structure:

1.     Main Content
       Informative Note
1.1    Implementation Details

Schema Reference

The unnumbered property is defined on both Section and BlockHeading nodes:

interface Section {
  type: "section";
  id?: string;
  heading?: BlockHeading;
  unnumbered?: boolean; // ← This property
  children: (Section | Block)[];
}

Related

• TOC Plugin – Generates table of contents
• Section Parsing – How sections are parsed from HTML/Markdown