lesshint

lesshint

lesshint is a tool to aid you in writing clean and consistent Less.

• Installation
• Configuration
• Rules
• CLI usage
• Complementary tools
• Linters
• Reporters
• Developer resources

Installation

Node.js 4 (or later) is required.

Run the following from the command line to install lesshint (add -g to install globally):

npm install lesshint

Configuration

For information on how to configure lesshint and other available options, see the user guide.

Since lesshint is highly customizable we recommend you to also take a look at the available rule options to tailor it to your needs.

CLI usage

Run lesshint from the command-line by passing one or more files/directories to recursively scan. Quote the glob patterns for optimal cross-platform results.

lesshint "src/less/" "lib/style.less"

Available Flags	Description
-c/--config	Specify the configuration file to use (will be merged with defaults).
-e/--exclude	A minimatch glob pattern or a file to exclude from being linted.
-l/--linters	Paths to custom linters to add to the built-in list. See "Linters" below for more information.
-r/--reporter	The reporter to use. See "Reporters" below for more information.
-V/--version	Show the version.
-x/--max-warnings	Number of warnings to allow before exiting with a non-zero code. Omit it to always exit with zero code.

Exit status codes

Depending on the linter results and options supplied, the exit status code returned by the CLI will differ.

Exit status code	Description
0	Everything is alright or only linting errors with a severity of warning were found.
1	One or more linting errors with a severity of error were found. Or when --max-warnings flag is set and the number of linting errors with a severity of warning found is greater than the given value.
66	No files to lint were supplied.
70	An unknown error occurred within lesshint, possibly a bug. Please file an issue!
78	Something is wrong with the config file, most likely invalid JSON.

These codes were chosen with regards to the preferable exit codes.

Complementary tools

• AtomLinter plugin - A Linter plugin for Atom.
• autolesshint - Automagically fix errors reported by lesshint.
• Gulp plugin - A gulp plugin for lesshint.
• Grunt plugin - A Grunt for plugin lesshint.

Linters

In addition to the linters included with lesshint, it's also possible to include custom ones. For example to check something team or project specific.

For more information on using custom linters, see the user guide.

Reporters

Reporters are small modules that can be used to perform actions with the lint results, for example printing something to the terminal or generate custom reports.

For more information on using reporters, see the user guide.

Developer resources

• Node API - lesshint's public Node API reference.
• Developing linters - Guide for hacking on linters.
• Developing reporters - Guide for hacking on reporters.