As a data format, yaml is extremely complicated and it has many footguns. In this post I explain some of those pitfalls by means of an example, and I suggest a few simpler and safer yaml alternatives.
A 10 minute read covering some YAML edge-cases that you should have in mind when writing complex YAML files
JSON is not easier for most strings. Anything multiline for example.
But yaml is a superset of JSON so you literally can use JSON and it’s still valid YAML.