For an overview of all available linters, go here.
Table of contents:
Table of Contents
- Configuration
- Introduction
- Namespace local configuration
- Exclude files from being linted
- Unrecognized macros
- Options
- Disable a linter
- Enable optional linters
- Disable all linters but one
- Ignore warnings in an expression
- Lint a custom macro like a built-in macro
- Override config in comment forms
- :config-in-call
- :config-in-tag
- Ignore the contents of comment forms
- Disable auto-load-configs
- Only lint specific dialects in .cljc files
- Available linters
- Hooks
- Output
- Namespace groups
- Example configurations
- Exporting and importing configuration
- Deprecations
Clj-kondo can be configured in several ways:
- home dir config in
~/.config/clj-kondo/config.edn
(respectsXDG_CONFIG_HOME
). - project config: a
config.edn
file in the.clj-kondo
directory (see project setup). :config-paths
in projectconfig.edn
: a list of directories that provide additional config.- command line
--config
file or EDN arguments. - namespace local config using
:clj-kondo/config
metadata in the namespace form (see below).
The configurations are merged in the following order, where a later config overrides an earlier config:
- home dir config
:config-paths
in project config- project config
CLJ_KONDO_EXTRA_CONFIG_DIR
environment variable- command line config
- namespace local config
The ^:replace
metadata hint can be used to replace parts or all of the
configuration instead of merging with previous ones. The home dir config is
implicitly part of :config-paths
. To opt out of merging with home dir config
use :config-paths ^:replace []
in your project config.
Look at the default configuration for all available options.
Clj-kondo supports configuration on the namespace level, in two ways.
The :config-in-ns
option can be used to change the configuration while linting
a specific namespace.
{:config-in-ns {my.namespace {:linters {:unresolved-symbol {:level :off}}}}}
This will silence unresolved symbol errors in the following:
(ns my.namespace)
x y z
See Namespace groups on how to configure multiple namespace in one go.
Since clj-kondo 2023.03.17 you can use a shorter notation to disable multiple linters inside of a namespace:
{:config-in-ns {my.namespace {:ignore [:unresolved-namespace]}}}
to suppress specific linters or
{:config-in-ns {my.namespace {:ignore true}}}
to suppress all linters inside of that namespace.
Clj-kondo supports config changes while linting a namespace via namespace metadata. The same example as above, but via metadata:
(ns my.namespace
{:clj-kondo/config '{:linters {:unresolved-symbol {:level :off}}}})
x y z
Note that namespace local config must always be quoted on the outside:
{:clj-kondo/config '{:linters ...}}
Quotes should not appear inside the config.
Since clj-kondo 2023.03.17, you can use a shorter notation to suppress linters in namespace:
{:clj-kondo/ignore [:unresolved-symbol]}
to suppress certain linters within a namespace or simply {:clj-kondo/ignore true}
to suppress them all.
You can prevent files from being linted, using the following configuration:
{:exclude-files "my_regex.cljc$"}
Note that the string for the :exclude-files
represents a regex which will be
executing through re-find
on the filename. To improve cross-platform behavior
you must use slashes on all platforms including Windows as the file separator:
{:exclude-files "src/my_regex.cljc$"}
Clj-kondo only expands a selected set of macros from clojure.core and some popular community libraries. For unrecognized macros you can use these configurations:
Since clj-kondo 2023.03.17 you can use metadata on the macro as a way to configure the behavior of macro calls:
(defmacro with-foo
{:clj-kondo/lint-as 'clojure.core/let}
[bnds & body]
`(let [~@bnds]
~@body))
(with-foo [a 1]
a) ;; no warning, macro configured as clojure.core/let
(defmacro matcher
{:clj-kondo/ignore [:unresolved-symbol :type-mismatch]}
[m match-expr & body]
;; dummy
[m match-expr body])
(matcher {:a 1} {?a 1} (inc :foo)) ;; no warning in usage of macro
Additionally :clj-kondo/config
key is supported where you can supply a
configuration that will be applied within macro calls.
The metadata configuration on macros is automatically exported to
.clj-kondo/inline-configs/macro_namespace.clj/config.edn
when linting the
file. Note that the file containing the macro needs to be linted first and only
after that, the right configuration will be in place such that macro usages will
be correctly linted. This will happen when you follow the project setup
instructions.
Note that inline configurations can also be configured using :config-in-call
in the .clj-kondo/config.edn
file.
This section covers general configuration options. For an overview of all available linters, go here.
$ echo '(select-keys [:a])' | clj-kondo --lint -
<stdin>:1:1: error: wrong number of args (1) passed to clojure.core/select-keys
linting took 10ms, errors: 1, warnings: 0
$ echo '(select-keys [:a])' | clj-kondo --lint - --config '{:linters {:invalid-arity {:level :off}}}'
linting took 10ms, errors: 0, warnings: 0
Since clj-kondo 2023.03.17 a shorter notation is supported:
{:ignore [:unresolved-symbol]}
to suppress one or more linters, or:
{:ignore true}
to suppress all linters.
See also:
for fine-grained configuration.
Some linters are not enabled by default. Right now these linters are:
:missing-docstring
: warn when public var doesn't have a docstring.:unsorted-required-namespaces
: warn when namespaces in:require
are not sorted.:refer
: warn when there is any usage of:refer
in your namespace requires.:single-key-in
: warn when using assoc-in, update-in or get-in with single key.:shadowed-var
: warn when a binding shadows a var.:docstring-no-summary
: warn when first line of docstring is not a complete sentence.:docstring-leading-trailing-whitespace
: warn when docstring has leading or trailing whitespace.:used-underscored-binding
: warn when a underscored (ie marked as unused) binding is used.:warn-on-reflection
: warns about not setting*warn-on-reflection*
to true in Clojure namespaces.:unused-value
: warns about unused values.:redundant-call
: warns about redundant calls, mostly macros and functions that return their first argument as a no-op:redundant-str-call
: warn about unnecessarystr
calls
You can enable these linters by setting the :level
:
{:linters {:missing-docstring {:level :warning}}}
You can accomplish this by using ^:replace
metadata, which will override
instead of merge with other configurations:
$ clj-kondo --lint corpus --config '^:replace {:linters {:redundant-let {:level :info}}}'
corpus/redundant_let.clj:4:3: info: redundant let
corpus/redundant_let.clj:8:3: info: redundant let
corpus/redundant_let.clj:12:3: info: redundant let
To ignore all warnings in an expression, place a hint before it. It uses reader comments, so they won't end up in your runtime.
#_:clj-kondo/ignore
(inc 1 2 3)
To ignore warnings from just one or a few linters:
#_{:clj-kondo/ignore [:invalid-arity]}
(inc 1 2 3)
To ignore warnings for only one language in a reader conditional:
#_{:clj-kondo/ignore #?(:clj [:unused-binding] :cljs [])}
(defn foo [x]
#?(:cljs x)) ;; x is only used in cljs, but unused is ignored for clj, so no warning
In the following code the my-defn
macro is defined, but clj-kondo doesn't know how to interpret it:
(ns foo)
(defmacro my-defn [name args & body]
`(defn ~name ~args
(do (println "hello!")
~@body)))
(my-defn foo [x])
Hence (foo 1 2 3)
will not lead to an invalid arity error. However, the syntax
of my-defn
is a subset of clojure.core/defn
, so for detecting arity errors
we might have just linted it like that. That is what the following configuration accomplishes:
{:lint-as {foo/my-defn clojure.core/defn}}
When you have custom def
or defn
-like macros and you can't find a supported macro that is like it, you can use:
{:lint-as {foo/my-defn clj-kondo.lint-as/def-catch-all}}
{:config-in-comment {:linters {:unresolved-namespace {:level :off}}}}
The config-in-call
configuration option lets you tweak configuration within calls.
E.g. given this macro:
(ns my-ns)
(defmacro ignore [& _body])
(ignore x y z)
you can ignore unresolved symbols using:
{:config-in-call {my-ns/ignore {:linters {:unresolved-symbol {:level :off}}}}}
Since clj-kondo 2023.03.17 a shorter notation is supported to suppress linters:
{:config-in-call {my-ns/ignore {:ignore [:unresolved-symbol]}}}
to suppress a specific linter or:
{:config-in-call {my-ns/ignore {:ignore true}}}
to suppress all warnings.
The config-in-tag
configuration option lets you tweak configuration within
reader tags. By default, unresolved symbols and invalid arity calls are ignored
in reader tags since they can do arbitrary transformations at read time. E.g. this will not give an error:
#jsx [:foo {:href x}]
To get unresolved symbol warnings back, use:
{:config-in-tag {jsx {:linters {:unresolved-symbol {:level :error}}}}}
If you prefer not to lint the contents of (comment ...)
forms, use this configuration:
{:skip-comments true}
By default configurations in .clj-kondo/*/*/config.edn
are used. You can disable this with:
:auto-load-configs false
By default, clj-kondo will lint all dialects it understands in .cljc files. To focus on
a specific dialect or subset of dialects, use {:cljc {:features [LANG*]}}
, where LANG
is a given dialect keyword.
Given this example example.cljc
file:
(+ 5 #?(:clj "foo" :cljs "bar"))
With {:cljc {:features [:cljs]}}
, only the issues in the clojurescript
branch will be linted:
$ clj-kondo --lint /tmp/example.cljc
/tmp/example.cljc:1:14: warning: Expected: number, received: string.
/tmp/example.cljc:1:26: warning: Expected: number, received: keyword.
linting took 16ms, errors: 0, warnings: 2
$ clj-kondo --lint /tmp/example.cljc --config '{:cljc {:features [:cljs]}}'
/tmp/example.cljc:1:26: warning: Expected: number, received: keyword.
linting took 11ms, errors: 0, warnings: 1
See linters.md.
See hooks.md.
$ clj-kondo --lint corpus --config '{:output {:format :json}}' | jq '.findings[0]'
{
"type": "invalid-arity",
"filename": "corpus/nested_namespaced_maps.clj",
"row": 9,
"col": 1,
"level": "error",
"message": "wrong number of args (2) passed to nested-namespaced-maps/test-fn"
}
Printing in EDN format is also supported.
Use --config '{:output {:format :sarif}}
$ clj-kondo --lint corpus --config '{:output {:pattern "::{{level}} file={{filename}},line={{row}},col={{col}}::{{message}}"}}'
::warning file=corpus/compojure/core.clj,line=2,col=19::Unsorted namespace: foo
The custom pattern supports these template values:
Template Variable | Notes |
---|---|
{{filename}} |
File name |
{{row}} |
Row where linter violation starts |
{{end-row}} |
Row where linter violation ends |
{{col}} |
Column where linter violation starts |
{{end-col}} |
Column where linter violation ends |
{{level}} |
Lowercase level of linter warning, one of info,warn,error |
{{LEVEL}} |
Uppercase variant of {{level}} |
{{message}} |
Linter message |
{{type}} |
Linter violation type |
$ clj-kondo --lint "$(clj -Spath)" --config '{:output {:include-files ["^clojure/test"]}}'
clojure/test.clj:496:6: warning: redundant let
clojure/test/tap.clj:86:5: warning: redundant do
linting took 3289ms, errors: 0, warnings: 2
$ clj-kondo --lint "$(clj -Spath)" --config '{:output {:include-files ["^clojure/test"] :exclude-files ["tap"]}}'
clojure/test.clj:496:6: warning: redundant let
linting took 3226ms, errors: 0, warnings: 1
$ clj-kondo --lint "$(clj -Spath)" --config '{:output {:progress true}}'
.................................................................................................................
cljs/tools/reader.cljs:527:9: warning: redundant do
(rest of the output omitted)
The config '{:output {:canonical-paths true}}'
will output canonical file
paths (absolute file paths without ..
). This also shows the full path of a jar
file when you lint a classpath.
$ clj-kondo --lint corpus --config '{:output {:canonical-paths true}}'
/Users/borkdude/dev/clj-kondo/corpus/cljc/datascript.cljc:8:1: error: datascript.db/seqable? is called with 2 args but expects 1
(rest of the output omitted)
Adding '{:output {:linter-name true}}
will append rule name to the output line for each reported finding.
By default, this configuration is set to false
.
Output example with default false
:
$ echo '(def x (def x 1))' | clj-kondo --lint -
<stdin>:1:1: warning: redefined var #'user/x
<stdin>:1:8: warning: inline def
linting took 22ms, errors: 0, warnings: 2
Output example with {:output {:linter-name true}}
:
$ echo '(def x (def x 1))' | clj-kondo --config '{:output {:linter-name true}}' --lint -
<stdin>:1:1: warning: redefined var #'user/x [:redefined-var]
<stdin>:1:8: warning: inline def [:inline-def]
linting took 9ms, errors: 0, warnings: 2
Given this example example.cljc
file:
x
(let #?(:clj [x 1]
:cljs [])
)
When setting {:output {:langs true}}
clj-kondo will output the language context for each error in the .cljc file:
$ clj-kondo --lint /tmp/example.cljc --config '{:output {:langs true}}'
/tmp/example.cljc:1:1: error: Unresolved symbol: x [clj, cljs]
/tmp/example.cljc:3:15: warning: unused binding x [clj]
linting took 14ms, errors: 1, warnings: 1
Sometimes it is desirable to configure a group of namespaces in one go. This can be done by creating namespace groups:
{:ns-groups [{:pattern "foo\\..*" :name foo-group}
{:filename-pattern ".*bar_baz.*" :name bar-baz-group}]}
Each group consists of a :name
and either a :pattern
which matches the namespace, or a :filename-pattern
which matches the filename.
The pattern is evaluated by re-pattern
and matched with re-find
.
Namespace groups can be used in the following configurations:
- In the
:discouraged-var
linter:{foo-group/some-var {:message "..."}}
- In the
:discouraged-namespace
linter:{foo-group {:message "..."}}
- In
:config-in-ns
:{foo-group {:linters {:unresolved-symbol {:level :off}}}}
- In the
:unresolved-namespace
linter - In
:hooks
::analyze-call
and:macroexpand
Namespace groups can be extended to more linters. Please make an issue to request this.
These are some example configurations used in real projects. Feel free to create a PR with yours too.
Also see the config project.
A library will often have clj-kondo config that is useful to its users.
This config might include such things as custom hooks and :lint-as
rules for the library's public API.
You specify a clj-kondo config export for your library in a config.edn
file under the following directory structure:
clj-kondo.exports/<your-org>/<your-libname>/
This directory structure must be on your library's classpath. For a jar file, this means including it off the root of within the jar.
When a user includes your library as a dependency for their project, clj-kondo, when asked, will automatically import your library's clj-kondo export config to the user's project .clj-kondo
directory.
The user will then activate your config at their discretion.
See importing for details.
Remember that your exported clj-kondo config is to help users of your library lint against your library.
An exported config will, in most cases, be different from your local .clj-kondo/config.edn
.
The local config will typically also contain personal preferences and internal lint rules.
To activate the exported configuration in your local project, you can add the following to .clj-kondo/config.edn
:
{:config-paths ["../resources/clj-kondo.exports/<your-org>/<your-libname>"]}
The clj-kondo team has provided config exports for some popular libraries in the clj-kondo/config repo. Let's take a look at its clj-kondo exports:
❯ tree -F resources
resources
└── clj-kondo.exports/
└── clj-kondo/
├── claypoole/
│ ├── clj_kondo/
│ │ └── claypoole.clj
│ └── config.edn
├── fulcro/
│ └── config.edn
├── mockery/
│ ├── clj_kondo/
│ │ └── mockery/
│ │ ├── with_mock.clj
│ │ └── with_mocks.clj
│ └── config.edn
├── rum/
│ ├── clj_kondo/
│ │ └── rum.clj
│ └── config.edn
└── slingshot/
├── clj_kondo/
│ └── slingshot/
│ └── try_plus.clj
└── config.edn
The clj-kondo/config repo:
- Includes a
config.edn
for each library. This defines the clj-kondo export config. - Includes custom hooks for some libraries under
clj_kondo
. - Includes
"resources"
in itsdeps.edn
:paths
so that the exports will be included on the classpath when the repo is included as a:git/url
dependency. - Uses
clj-kondo
as the org name to not conflict with configurations that the owners of these libraries might themselves choose to export. For example, if theclaypoole
library itself wanted to export config, it would use its proper org-name instead ofclj-kondo
:clj-kondo.exports └── com.climate └── claypoole
Clj-kondo, when asked, will copy clj-kondo configs found in library dependencies. As an example, let's add clj-kondo/config as a dependency.
- Include
clj-kondo/config
in yourdeps.edn
:{:deps {clj-kondo/config {:git/url "https://github.com/clj-kondo/config" :sha "c37c13ea09b6aaf23db3a7a9a0574f422bb0b4c2"}}}
- Ensure a
.clj-kondo
directory exists, if necessary:$ mkdir .clj-kondo
- Then ask clj-kondo to copy configs like so:
$ clj-kondo --lint "$(clojure -Spath)" --copy-configs --skip-lint Configs copied: - .clj-kondo/clj-kondo/better-cond - .clj-kondo/clj-kondo/claypoole - .clj-kondo/clj-kondo/mockery - .clj-kondo/clj-kondo/rum - .clj-kondo/clj-kondo/slingshot
- Now enrichen clj-kondo's linting cache via:
$ clj-kondo --lint $(clojure -Spath) --dependencies --parallel
- That's it, your linting experience for your library dependencies is now augmented.
You can now lint your project as normal, for example:
$ clj-kondo --lint src:test
Clj-kondo configurations are only copied when both of these requirements are met:
- There is a
.clj-kondo
directory in your project. This directory is where clj-kondo will copy configs. - The
--copy-configs
flag is present. This tells clj-kondo to copy clj-kondo configs from dependencies while linting.
Typically, you will want to check copied configs into version control with your project.
See this article by Toni Vaisanen on how to use library configurations and malli!
Some configuration keys have been renamed over time. The default configuration is always up-to-date and we strive to maintain backwards compatibility. However, for completeness, you can find a list of the renamed keys here.
:if -> :missing-else-branch