After posting, it occurred to me to leverage conf-colon-mode. This doesn't distinguish catch misspelt field names (such as "Descirption"), but otherwise seems adequate for my simple needs.
I'm currently trying this: (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("/quilt_header\\.......\\'" . conf-colon-mode)) ; DEP-3 (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("/debian/\\([^/]+\\.\\)?\\(dirs\\|docs\\|install\\|manpages\\)\\'" . conf-mode)) (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("/debian/copyright\\'" . conf-colon-mode)) ; DEP-5 (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("/debian/patches/[^/]+\\'" . diff-mode)) ; 3.0 (quilt). -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org