Run detekt using Command Line Interface
Install the cli
There are different ways to install the Command Line Interface (CLI):
MacOS, with Homebrew:
brew install detekt
detekt [options]
Windows, with Scoop:
scoop install detekt
detekt [options]
Unix-like OS, with SDKMAN!:
sdk install detekt
Any OS:
curl -sSLO https://github.com/detekt/detekt/releases/download/v1.23.7/detekt-cli-1.23.7.zip
unzip detekt-cli-1.23.7.zip
./detekt-cli-1.23.7/bin/detekt-cli --help
NixOS:
As a prerequisite, you have to add the unstable channel via nix-channel and then execute the following command.
nix-shell -I nixpkgs=channel:nixpkgs-unstable -p detekt
Use the cli
detekt will exit with one of the following exit codes:
| Exit code | Description |
|---|---|
| 0 | detekt ran normally and no issues1 were found. |
| 1 | An unexpected error occurred. |
| 2 | At least one issue1 was found. |
| 3 | Invalid detekt configuration file detected. |
The following parameters are shown when --help is entered.
Usage: detekt [options] Options to pass to the Kotlin compiler.
Options:
--all-rules
Activates all available (even unstable) rules.
Default: false
--analysis-mode
Analysis mode used by detekt. 'full' analysis mode is comprehensive but
requires the correct compiler options to be provided. 'light' analysis
cannot utilise compiler information and some rules cannot be run in this
mode.
Default: light
Possible Values: [full, light]
--api-version
Kotlin API version used by the code under analysis. Some rules use this
information to provide more specific rule violation messages.
--auto-correct, -ac
Allow rules to auto correct code if they support it. The default rule
sets do NOT support auto correcting and won't change any line in the
users code base. However custom rules can be written to support auto
correcting. The additional 'formatting' rule set, added with
'--plugins', does support it and needs this flag.
Default: false
--base-path, -bp
Specifies a directory as the base path.Currently it impacts all file
paths in the formatted reports. File paths in console output are not
affected and remain as absolute paths.
Default: /home/runner/work/detekt/detekt/detekt-cli
--baseline, -b
If a baseline xml file is passed in, only new code smells not in the
baseline are printed in the console.
--build-upon-default-config
Preconfigures detekt with a bunch of rules and some opinionated defaults
for you. Allows additional provided configurations to override the
defaults.
Default: false
--classpath, -cp
Paths where to find user class files and depending jar files. Used for
type resolution.
--config, -c
Path to the config file (path/to/config.yml). Multiple configuration
files can be specified with ',' or ';' as separator.
Default: []
--config-resource, -cr
Path to the config resource on detekt's classpath (path/to/config.yml).
Default: []
--create-baseline, -cb
Treats current analysis findings as a smell baseline for future detekt
runs.
Default: false
--debug
Prints extra information about configurations and extensions.
Default: false
--disable-default-rulesets, -dd
Disables default rule sets.
Default: false
--excludes, -ex
Globbing patterns describing paths to exclude from the analysis.
--fail-on-severity
Specifies the minimum severity that causes the build to fail. When the
value is set to 'Never' detekt will not fail regardless of the number of
issues and their severities.
Default: Error
Possible Values: [Error, Warning, Info, Never]
--generate-config, -gc
Export default config to the provided path.
--help, -h
Shows the usage.
--includes, -in
Globbing patterns describing paths to include in the analysis. Useful in
combination with 'excludes' patterns.
--input, -i
Input paths to analyze. Multiple paths are separated by comma. If not
specified the current working directory is used.
Default: [/home/runner/work/detekt/detekt/detekt-cli]
--jdk-home
Use a custom JDK home directory to include into the classpath
--jvm-target
Target version of the generated JVM bytecode that was generated during
compilation and is now being used for type resolution
Default: 1.8
Possible Values: [1.6, 1.8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23]
--language-version
Compatibility mode for Kotlin language version X.Y, reports errors for
all language features that came out later
Possible Values: [1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8, 1.9, 2.0, 2.1, 2.2]
--parallel
Enables parallel compilation and analysis of source files. Do some
benchmarks first before enabling this flag. Heuristics show performance
benefits starting from 2000 lines of Kotlin code.
Default: false
--plugins, -p
Extra paths to plugin jars separated by ',' or ';'.
Default: []
--report, -r
Generates a report for given 'report-id' and stores it on given 'path'.
Entry should consist of: [report-id:path]. Available 'report-id' values:
'xml', 'html', 'md', 'sarif'. These can also be used in combination with
each other e.g. '-r html:reports/detekt.html -r xml:reports/detekt.xml'
Default: []
--version
Prints the detekt CLI version.
Default: false
Use the cli to generate configuration for custom rules
Usage: java -jar detekt-generator-1.23.7-all.jar [options]
Options:
--generate-custom-rule-config, -gcrc
Generate custom rules configuration files. The files will be
placed under 'resources' folder of each rule respectively
(e.g. 'custom-rule/src/main/resources/config/config.yml').
--input, -i
Input paths to rules to analyze. Multiple paths are separated by comma.
java -jar detekt-generator-1.23.7-all.jar -gcrc -i /path/to/rule1, /path/to/rule2