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Reporting

Formats​

In addition to the CLI output, Detekt supports 4 different types of output reporting formats. You can refer to CLI or Gradle to find out how to configure these report formats.

TXT​

Similar to the console output, each line of the txt output represents a finding and contains finding signature to help edit baseline files.

EmptyFunctionBlock - [This empty block of code can be removed.] at /user/home/detekt/detekt-gradle-plugin/src/main/kotlin/io/gitlab/arturbosch/detekt/DetektPlugin.kt:14:42 - Signature=DetektPlugin.kt$DetektPlugin${ }
NoUnusedImports - [Unused import] at /user/home/detekt/detekt-gradle-plugin/src/main/kotlin/io/gitlab/arturbosch/detekt/DetektPlugin.kt:9:1 - Signature=io.gitlab.arturbosch.detekt.DetektPlugin.kt:9
NoUnusedImports - [Unused import] at /user/home/detekt/detekt-gradle-plugin/src/main/kotlin/io/gitlab/arturbosch/detekt/DetektPlugin.kt:10:1 - Signature=io.gitlab.arturbosch.detekt.DetektPlugin.kt:10
NoConsecutiveBlankLines - [Needless blank line(s)] at /user/home/detekt/detekt-gradle-plugin/src/main/kotlin/io/gitlab/arturbosch/detekt/DetektPlugin.kt:86:1 - Signature=io.gitlab.arturbosch.detekt.DetektPlugin.kt:86
UnusedPrivateMember - [Private function registerDetektJvmTasks is unused.] at /user/home/detekt/detekt-gradle-plugin/src/main/kotlin/io/gitlab/arturbosch/detekt/DetektPlugin.kt:17:5 - Signature=DetektPlugin.kt$DetektPlugin$private fun Project.registerDetektJvmTasks(extension: DetektExtension)

HTML​

HTML is a human-readable format that can be open through browser. It includes different metrics and complexity reports of this run, in addition to the findings with detailed descriptions and report. Check out the example: HTML report

XML​

XML is a machine-readable format that can be integrated with CI tools. It is compatible with Checkstyle output.

SARIF​

SARIF is a standard format for the output of static analysis tools. It is a JSON format with a defined schema. It is currently supported by GitHub Code Scanning, and we expect more consuming tools will adopt this format in the future.

MD​

Markdown is a lightweight markup language for creating formatted text using a plain-text editor. The output structure looks similar to HTML format. About markdown on GitHub.

Severity​

For machine-readable format, it is possible to configure the severity of each finding to fit your CI policy with respects to errors. You may specify the severity level in the config file for rule, or ruleSets:

empty-blocks:
  active: true
  severity: error
  EmptyCatchBlock:
    active: true
    severity: info

The severity will be computed in the priority order:

  • Severity of the rule if exists
  • Severity of the parent ruleset if exists
  • Default severity: warning

Relative path​

In a shared codebase, it is often required to use relative path so that all developers and tooling have a consistent view. This can be enabled by CLI option --base-path or Gradle as the following:

detekt {
    basePath = projectDir
}

Note that this option only affects file paths in those formats for machine consumers, namely XML and SARIF.

Merging reports​

The machine-readable report formats support report merging. Detekt Gradle plugin is not opinionated in how merging is set up and respects each project's build logic, especially the merging makes most sense in a multi-module project. In this spirit, only Gradle tasks are provided.

At the moment, merging XML and SARIF are supported. You can refer to the sample build script below and run ./gradlew detekt reportMerge --continue to execute detekt tasks and merge the corresponding reports.

Groovy DSL​

tasks.register("reportMerge", io.gitlab.arturbosch.detekt.report.ReportMergeTask) {
  output = project.layout.buildDirectory.file("reports/detekt/merge.xml") // or "reports/detekt/merge.sarif"
}

subprojects {
  detekt {
    reports.xml.required.set(true)
    // reports.sarif.required.set(true)
  }

  plugins.withType(io.gitlab.arturbosch.detekt.DetektPlugin) {
    tasks.withType(io.gitlab.arturbosch.detekt.Detekt) { detektTask -> // Sadly it has to be eager.
      finalizedBy(reportMerge)

      reportMerge.configure { mergeTask ->
        mergeTask.input.from(detektTask.xmlReportFile) // or detektTask.sarifReportFile
      }
    }
  }
}

Kotlin DSL​

val reportMerge by tasks.registering(io.gitlab.arturbosch.detekt.report.ReportMergeTask::class) { 
  output.set(rootProject.layout.buildDirectory.file("reports/detekt/merge.xml")) // or "reports/detekt/merge.sarif"
}

subprojects {
  detekt {
    reports.xml.required.set(true)
    // reports.sarif.required.set(true)
  }

  plugins.withType<io.gitlab.arturbosch.detekt.DetektPlugin> {
    tasks.withType<io.gitlab.arturbosch.detekt.Detekt> detekt@{ // Sadly it has to be eager.
      finalizedBy(reportMerge)

      reportMerge.configure {
        input.from(this@detekt.xmlReportFile) // or .sarifReportFile
      }
    }
  }
}

Integration with Github Code Scanning​

If your repository is hosted on Github, you can enable SARIF output in your repository. You can follow to the official documentation.

To change the severity level to fail your GitHub Action build configure it in GitHub Settings.

You can follow the example below as a quick start:

jobs:
  without-type-resolution:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    env:
      GRADLE_OPTS: -Dorg.gradle.daemon=false
    steps:
      - name: Checkout Repo
        uses: actions/checkout@v3

      - name: Setup Java
        uses: actions/setup-java@v3
        with:
          java-version: 11

      - name: Run detekt
        run: ./gradlew detekt

      # Make sure we always run this upload task,
      # because the previous step may fail if there are findings.
      - name: Upload SARIF to Github using the upload-sarif action
        uses: github/codeql-action/upload-sarif@v2
        if: success() || failure()
        with:
          sarif_file: build/reports/detekt/detekt.sarif

Note: you'll have to set Detekt.basePath on each Detekt Gradle task, so that GitHub knows where the repository is to place annotations correctly.

basePath = rootProject.projectDir.absolutePath