SonarLint Connected Mode

SonarLint's Connected Mode connects SonarLint to your SonarQube project and provides additional benefits you won't get by using SonarLint or SonarQube alone.

Shared code quality and security expectations
When using SonarLint, the Sonar way Quality Profile is used by default and users can customize their ruleset. If you're using a different quality profile in SonarQube, new issues might be raised in SonarQube even though your commit looked clean in SonarLint. With Connected Mode, the same customized rule set is applied in both your IDE and in SonarQube, and you're notified in your IDE when your local instance isn't meeting the project's quality gate standards.

More security
When using SonarLint alone, taint analysis issues found by commercial editions of SonarQube aren't raised in SonarLint for performance reasons (we don't want to slow down your editing). In Connected Mode, you'll see the taint analysis issues SonarQube raised in your project. You'll get all of the context in your IDE that you need to triage and fix security problems thereby making sure the code you commit is safe.

SonarLint-SonarQube version support policy

SonarLint enables users to establish a connection to the latest SonarQube version and to the latest LTS version. When a new LTS version is released (approximately every 18 months), we still enable connecting SonarLint to the previous LTS version for a certain period of time (currently 12 months after the latest LTS release) to allow enough time for organizations to upgrade their SonarQube version.

For more information about long-term support of SonarQube, check out our page describing "what is an LTS". And, to review IDE-specific requirements, please check the respective pages of the documentation as listed in the next paragraph.

Setting up Connected Mode

See the following links for instructions on setting up Connected Mode for each supported IDE:

• IntelliJ
• Visual Studio
• VS Code
• Eclipse

Understanding SonarLint usage

SonarQube administrators can get an overview of SonarLint usage among users by going to Administration > Security > Users. 

The Last SonarLint connection column indicates the last time the user used SonarLint in connected mode.

You can filter users based on their activity. The available options are:

• All users
• Active users with SonarLint: Users that used SonarLint in connected mode at least once in the past 30 days.
• Active users without SonarLint: Users that connected to SonarQube at least once in the past 30 days.
• Inactive users: Users that did not connect to SonarQube or use SonarLint in connected mode in the past 30 days.

Smart notifications

Connected Mode allows SonarQube to send smart alerts to individuals or teams when new issues are discovered. With everyone in the loop, issues can be addressed promptly, improving the overall software quality and delivery. You'll receive smart notifications in your IDE when:

• the quality gate status of a project open in your IDE changes
• a SonarQube analysis raises new issues that you've introduced in a project open in your IDE

You can activate or deactivate smart notifications in SonarLint on the IDE side on a server-by-server basis.