> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.sonarsource.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.sonarsource.com/sonarqube-cloud/standards/managing-quality-profiles/editing-a-custom-quality-profile.md).

# Editing a quality profile

To edit a quality profile, you need the Administer Quality Profiles permission or be authorized to manage this particular profile.

*This feature is only available in the Team and Enterprise plans. See* [Subscription plans](/sonarqube-cloud/administering-sonarcloud/managing-subscription/subscription-plans.md) *for more information.*

Those with the Administer Quality Profiles permission and Users authorized to manage a particular profile have full control of the quality profile's definition. These users can rename a profile, change its parent, activate and deactivate rules, as well as customize a rule's parameters within that quality profile.

For a custom general profile, you can also change the security standards and the rule activation thresholds you selected when you created it. Rule-by-rule changes, renaming, and the profile details page are available from the **Language-specific** tab, where the profile has a **General custom profile** label.

## Editing the standards and thresholds of a general profile <a href="#editing-profile-for-all-languages" id="editing-profile-for-all-languages"></a>

1. Go to *Your organization* > **Policies** > **Quality profiles**. See [Retrieving your organizations](/sonarqube-cloud/getting-started/viewing-organizations.md) to access your organization.
2. On the **General** tab, locate the custom profile in the **In use** or **All** tab.
3. In the action menu of the profile, select **Edit**. A dialog opens with the security standards step.

<figure><img src="https://2223713658-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FB4UT2GNiZKjtxFtcFAL7%2Fuploads%2Fgit-blob-2f6486f4eae38c83b96e8f40433f4df9db64e416%2Fsonarqube-cloud-quality-general-edit.png?alt=media" alt="The General tab with In use selected and an action menu open, showing Set as default, Assign projects, Edit, and Delete"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

4. Change the security standards that the profile must cover, then select **Next**.
5. In **Rule thresholds**, use the sliders to change the rule activation threshold for **Security**, **Reliability**, and **Maintainability**. To exclude a software quality completely, set its slider to **None**. Rules mapped to the selected security standards stay active even if the thresholds would otherwise exclude them.
6. Select **Save**.

Rules you activated individually in the profile stay active when you change the thresholds. See [#activating-rules-in-quality-profile](#activating-rules-in-quality-profile "mention").

## Activating rules in a quality profile <a href="#activating-rules-in-quality-profile" id="activating-rules-in-quality-profile"></a>

You can activate rules in any custom quality profile.

{% hint style="info" %}
If your organization is on a Free or Team plan, you may see rules from the Enterprise plan with `misra-` tags. You will have to upgrade to the [Enterprise](https://www.sonarsource.com/plans-and-pricing/sonarcloud/) plan in order to activate these rules in a custom quality profile.
{% endhint %}

### Activating a single rule <a href="#activating-a-single-rule" id="activating-a-single-rule"></a>

When you activate a single rule, you can customize the rule configurable parameters, if any, in the quality profile.

To activate a single rule in a custom quality profile (from the quality profile’s page):

1. Go to *Your organization* > **Policies** > **Quality profiles** and select the **Language-specific** tab. See [Retrieving your organizations](/sonarqube-cloud/getting-started/viewing-organizations.md) to access your organization.

<figure><img src="https://2223713658-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FB4UT2GNiZKjtxFtcFAL7%2Fuploads%2Fgit-blob-69305b45c7fb16ccc5a53b688daeb83fcdf13fd3%2Fquality-profile-activate-rules.png?alt=media" alt="Activating more rules for a quality profile"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

2. Locate the quality profile’s row and display the list of available rules as follows:
   1. Either select the action menu on the right side of the row, and select **Activate more rules**.
   2. Or select the profile and, in the profile page, select the **Activate more** button at the bottom of the **Rule breakdown** section.
3. To activate a single rule, select **Activate** at the far right of the rule row. The **Activate in Quality Profile** modal opens.
4. If necessary, customize the rule parameters and change the recommended severity levels of the rule.
5. Select **Activate**.

### From the rules page

To activate a single rule in a custom quality profile (from the rule’s page):

1. See [Retrieving your organizations](/sonarqube-cloud/getting-started/viewing-organizations.md) to access your organization, then go to the **Rules** page and retrieve your rule.
2. On the **Rules** page, navigate to the bottom to the **Quality profiles** section.
3. In front of **Quality profiles**, select **Activate**. The **Activate rule in Quality Profile** modal opens.
4. In **Quality Profile**, select the quality profile. Note that if the rule is active in all profiles except one, this profile will be automatically selected in the modal.
5. Customize the rule parameters if applicable and necessary.
6. Select **Activate**.

### Activating all inactive rules <a href="#activating-all-inactive-rules" id="activating-all-inactive-rules"></a>

To activate all inactive rules in a custom quality profile:

1. Go to *Your organization* > **Policies** > **Quality profiles** and, on the **Language-specific** tab, retrieve your quality profile. See [Retrieving your organizations](/sonarqube-cloud/getting-started/viewing-organizations.md) to access your organization.
2. At the bottom of the **Rule breakdown** section, select **Activate more**. The list of inactive rules is displayed.
3. In the top tool bar, select **Bulk Change** > **Activate in <**&#x59;OUR PROFIL&#x45;**>**. A confirmation modal opens.
4. Confirm.

### Activating rules from a profile comparison <a href="#activating-rules-from-a-profile-comparison" id="activating-rules-from-a-profile-comparison"></a>

When you compare two profiles, you can activate a rule from the comparison results. See the [Viewing quality profiles](/sonarqube-cloud/standards/managing-quality-profiles/viewing-quality-profiles.md) to learn about comparing profiles.

## Deactivating rules in a quality profile <a href="#deactivating-rules-in-a-quality-profile" id="deactivating-rules-in-a-quality-profile"></a>

You can deactivate rules in any custom quality profile.

To deactivate rules in a custom quality profile (from the quality profile’s page):

1. Go to *Your organization* > **Policies** > **Quality profiles** and, on the **Language-specific** tab, retrieve your quality profile. See [Retrieving your organizations](/sonarqube-cloud/getting-started/viewing-organizations.md) to access your organization.
2. In the **Inheritance** section, select the **X active rules** hyperlink. The list of active rules displayed.
3. To deactivate a single rule, select **Deactivate** at the far right of the rule row.
4. To deactivate all active rules, select **Bulk Change** > **Deactivate in <**&#x59;OUR PROFIL&#x45;**>** in the top tool bar.

To deactivate a single rule in a custom quality profile (from the rule’s page):

1. See [Retrieving your organizations](/sonarqube-cloud/getting-started/viewing-organizations.md) to access your organization, then go to the **Rules** page and retrieve your rule.
2. On the rule page, navigate to the bottom, in the **Quality profiles** section.
3. In front of the custom quality profile, select **Deactivate**.

## Customizing a rule’s severity levels in a quality profile <a href="#customizing-rule-severity-levels" id="customizing-rule-severity-levels"></a>

There are cases when you might want to change a rule’s severity level in a quality profile to adjust the rule’s impact on the quality gate, for example:

* You might disagree with the default severity level set in SonarQube.
* You added a new rule to a quality profile and want to start with a lower severity level without breaking your quality gate.
* You want certain rules, when broken, to block your quality gate from passing.

To change a rule’s severity levels in a quality profile:

<figure><img src="https://2223713658-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FB4UT2GNiZKjtxFtcFAL7%2Fuploads%2Fgit-blob-a905872dc553f6e8a35bbcc5c74d042d5bd3f718%2Frules-change-severity.png?alt=media" alt="Changing a rule’s severity levels from the Rules page"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

1. Retrieve your organization. See [Retrieving your organizations](/sonarqube-cloud/getting-started/viewing-organizations.md) for details.
2. Go to **Rules**.
3. In the filters column, scroll down to the **Quality profile** section and select the quality profile to which you want to apply the change.
4. Find the rule and select **Change**.
5. In the modal, apply new severity levels to one or more software qualities (Security, Reliability, Maintainability) for this quality profile.
6. Select **Save**.

<div align="left"><figure><img src="https://2223713658-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FB4UT2GNiZKjtxFtcFAL7%2Fuploads%2Fgit-blob-6521d287ae6bfdfa8ed801ef7c5eec31af08fdf2%2Frules-severity-update.png?alt=media" alt="Updating a rule’s severity levels for a quality profile" width="563"><figcaption></figcaption></figure></div>

Alternatively, you can change the rule’s severity levels from within the quality profile:

<figure><img src="https://2223713658-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FB4UT2GNiZKjtxFtcFAL7%2Fuploads%2Fgit-blob-bc0997cc302ace4ff609f5fecb5bd68693aa8042%2Frules-change-severity-profile.png?alt=media" alt="Changing a rule’s severity levels from the quality profile"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

1. Go to *Your organization* > **Policies** > **Quality profiles** and select the **Language-specific** tab. See [Retrieving your organizations](/sonarqube-cloud/getting-started/viewing-organizations.md) to access your organization.
2. In the **Rules** column, select the rule count for your quality profile.
3. Find the rule and select **Change**.
4. In the modal, apply new severity levels to one or more software qualities (Security, Reliability, Maintainability) for this quality profile.
5. Select **Save**.

A rule can have only one type, whereas it can have multiple software qualities. See [SonarQube rules](/sonarqube-cloud/standards/managing-rules/rules.md#software-qualities) and [SonarQube rules](/sonarqube-cloud/standards/managing-rules/rules.md#types) for details.

SonarQube maps the severity levels based on priority, with Security ranked highest, then Reliability and Maintainability. Your customized software quality severities map to the type severity, which determines your rating measures.

## Renaming a quality profile <a href="#renaming-a-quality-profile" id="renaming-a-quality-profile"></a>

You can rename any custom quality profile.

To rename a quality profile:

1. Go to *Your organization* > **Policies** > **Quality profiles** and, on the **Language-specific** tab, retrieve your quality profile. See [Retrieving your organizations](/sonarqube-cloud/getting-started/viewing-organizations.md) to access your organization.
2. Select the action menu.
3. Select **Rename**. The **Rename Profile** modal opens.
4. Enter the new name and select **Rename**.

## Changing the parent of a quality profile <a href="#changing-parent-of-quality-profile" id="changing-parent-of-quality-profile"></a>

You can change or remove the existing parent, or you can add a parent to a custom language-specific quality profile. A custom general profile always inherits from Sonar way comprehensive, so you cannot change its parent.

To change the parent of a language-specific profile:

1. Go to *Your organization* > **Policies** > **Quality profiles** and, on the **Language-specific** tab, retrieve your quality profile. See [Retrieving your organizations](/sonarqube-cloud/getting-started/viewing-organizations.md) to access your organization.
2. In the **Inheritance** section of the quality profile, select **Change parent**. The **Change Parent** modal opens.
3. In the modal, select the new parent or **None** to remove the inheritance.
4. Select **Change**.

## Related pages <a href="#related-pages" id="related-pages"></a>

* [Understanding quality profiles](/sonarqube-cloud/standards/managing-quality-profiles/understanding-quality-profiles.md)
* [Viewing quality profiles](/sonarqube-cloud/standards/managing-quality-profiles/viewing-quality-profiles.md)
* [Creating a quality profile](/sonarqube-cloud/standards/managing-quality-profiles/creating-a-quality-profile.md)
* [Associating with projects](/sonarqube-cloud/standards/managing-quality-profiles/associating-a-quality-profile-with-projects.md)
* [Changing default quality profile](/sonarqube-cloud/standards/managing-quality-profiles/changing-default-quality-profile.md)
* [Maintaining quality profiles](/sonarqube-cloud/standards/managing-quality-profiles/maintaining-your-custom-quality-profiles.md)
* [Granting permissions to users](/sonarqube-cloud/standards/managing-quality-profiles/authorizing-other-users-to-manage-quality-profile.md)
* [Quality profile](/sonarqube-cloud/managing-your-projects/project-analysis/quality-profile-association.md)
* [Quality profiles for agentic AI](/sonarqube-cloud/standards/ai-code-assurance/quality-profiles-for-agentic-ai.md)


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