Configuration

NOTE: parts of the config may change as clj-kondo sees more usage. Please let me know which parts you are using and find useful.

clj-kondo can be configured in three ways:

• by placing a config.edn file in the .clj-kondo directory (see project setup)
• by providing a --config file argument from the command line
• by providing a --config EDN argument from the command line (see examples below)

The command line argument overrides a config.edn.

Look at the default configuration for all available options.

Examples

Output

Print results in JSON format

$ 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.

Include and exclude files from the output

$ 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

Show progress bar while linting

$ clj-kondo --lint "$(clj -Spath)" --config '{:output {:progress true}}'
.................................................................................................................
cljs/tools/reader.cljs:527:9: warning: redundant do
(rest of the output omitted)

Disable a linter

$ 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

Disable all linters but one

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

Exclude arity linting inside a specific macro call

Some macros rewrite their arguments and therefore can cause false positive arity errors. Imagine the following silly macro:

(ns silly-macros)

(defmacro with-map [m [fn & args]]
  `(~fn ~m ~@args))

which you can call like:

(silly-macros/with-map {:a 1 :d 2} (select-keys [:a :b :c])) ;;=> {:a 1}

Normally a call to this macro will give an invalid arity error for (select-keys [:a :b :c]), but not when you use the following configuration:

{:linters {:invalid-arity {:skip-args [silly-macros/with-map]}}}

Lint a custom macro like a built-in macro

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}}

Exclude required but unused namespace from being reported

In the following code, the namespaces foo.specs and bar.specs are only loaded for the side effect of registering specs, so we don't like clj-kondo reporting those namespaces as required but unused.

(ns foo (:require [foo.specs] [bar.specs]))
(defn my-fn [x] x)

That can be done using this config:

{:linters {:unused-namespace {:exclude [foo.specs bar.specs]}}}

A regex is also supported:

{:linters {:unused-namespace {:exclude [".*\\.specs$"]}}}

This will exclude all namespaces ending with .specs.

Exclude unresolved symbols from being reported

In the following code streams is a macro that assigns a special meaning to the symbol where, so it should not be reported as an unresolved symbol:

(ns foo
  (:require [riemann.streams [streams]]))

(def email (mailer {:host "mail.relay"
                    :from "riemann@example.com"}))
(streams
  (where (and (= (:service event) “my-service”)
              (= (:level event) “ERROR”))
    ,,,))

This is the config for it:

{:linters
  {:unresolved-symbol
    {:exclude [(riemann.streams/streams [where])]}}}

To exclude all symbols in calls to riemann.streams/streams write :exclude [(riemann.streams/streams)], without the vector.

To exclude a symbol from being reported as unresolved globally in your project, e.g. foo, you can use :exclude [foo].

Sometimes vars are introduced by executing macros, e.g. when using HugSQL's def-db-fns. You can suppress warnings about these vars by using declare. Example:

(ns hugsql-example
  (:require [hugsql.core :as hugsql]))

(declare select-things)

;; this will define a var #'select-things:
(hugsql/def-db-fns "select_things.sql")

(defn get-my-things [conn params]
  (select-things conn params))

Furthermore, the :lint-as option can help treating certain macros like built-in ones. This is in clj-kondo's own config:

:lint-as {me.raynes.conch/programs clojure.core/declare
          me.raynes.conch/let-programs clojure.core/let}

and helps preventing false positive unresolved symbols in this code:

(ns foo (:require [me.raynes.conch :refer [programs let-programs]]))

(programs rm mkdir echo mv)
(let-programs [clj-kondo "./clj-kondo"]
  ,,,)