Configuration

Project-wide settings live in a .xslint.yml file, discovered by walking up from the current directory (or passed with --config <path>). Command-line flags override the file, and the file overrides the built-in defaults.

# .xslint.yml
preset: all              # default for --preset: recommended or all
rules:
  short-names: off       # turn one check off
  "unused-*": error      # or a family, by glob
exclude:
  - "test/**"                           # globs to skip, relative to this file
only:
  - "unused"                            # default for --only
max-warnings: 10                        # default for --max-warnings
log-level: info                         # default for --log-level
quiet: false                            # default for --quiet
baseline: xslint-baseline.json          # default for --baseline

• preset names the preset a run starts from, recommended unless it says all. Passing --preset replaces it.
• rules maps a check name — or a glob such as unused-* — to off, warning, or error. off disables the check (like --suppress); warning and error re-grade its severity. A check named exactly also runs where the preset leaves it out, which is how one style check joins a recommended run; a glob re-grades only the checks already in the run, so "*": warning or "unused-*": error adds none.
• exclude lists globs, relative to the config file's own directory, whose matching files are not linted. A pattern covering everything under a directory — dir/** — also stops the walk descending it, so an exclusion costs nothing rather than the walk it then throws away. A wildcard here reads a name opening with a dot like any other, so dir/** covers a dir/.hidden/sheet.xsl as much as the rest of what stands under dir.
• only lists the substrings --only would take, narrowing every run to the checks they name. Passing --only replaces this list rather than adding to it, and a check rules turns off stays off whichever of the two chose it. An entry no check name holds stops the run, naming that entry.
• max-warnings, log-level, and quiet set the defaults for the matching command-line flags.
• baseline names the baseline file a run compares against, relative to this file. Passing --baseline replaces it.

Unknown top-level keys, rule names that match no check, and values of the wrong type (a non-numeric max-warnings, a non-list exclude or only, a non-boolean quiet, a non-string log-level, preset, or baseline) are reported and ignored, so typos do not pass silently. A preset that does not exist, or an only entry no check name holds, fails the run instead, before a file is read, since a run over the wrong checks would read as a clean report. An exclude glob is named the same way when a run walks a directory and the glob excludes nothing anywhere under it.