CLI not locating .hintrc in user's home directory

[jgarber623]

Hello!

There appears to be a small issue when running the sonarwhal CLI under the following conditions:

• sonarwhal is installed globally (consistent with the official documentation),
• There's a "global" .sonarwhalrc configuration file in the user's home directory (~/.sonarwhalrc),
• The user is running sonarwhal [url] in a folder other than the user's home directory, and
• The current working directory contains package.json, node_modules/, etc.

I would expect that, regardless of the presence or absence of package.json, node_modules/, etc. in the current working directory that running sonarwhal [url] would first look in the current working directory for a configuration file then look in the user's home directory for the configuration file.

Note that running sonarwhal [url] in an arbitrary directory without package.json, node_modules/, etc. functions as expected, correctly locating and using the ~/.sonarwhalrc configuration file.

This issue is related to PR #718.

Environment

• sonarwhal version: 1.11.2
• Node.js version: 10.4.1
• npm version: 6.1.0

sonarwhal configuration

sonarwhal’s configuration

{
    "extends": [
        "web-recommended",
        "progressive-web-apps"
    ],
    "formatters": "stylish"
}

URL for which sonarwhal failed

• URL: https://sonarwhal.com

Output

Please include the raw output generated by sonarwhal, or if possible,
the raw output from running sonarwhal in debug mode: sonarwhal --debug <URL>.

sonarwhal’s raw output

$ npm install -g sonarwhal @sonarwhal/configuration-progressive-web-apps @sonarwhal/configuration-web-recommended
$ cd ~/some/directory
$ sonarwhal https://sonarwhal.com              

   ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
   │                                                               │
   │             Couldn't find any valid configuration             │
   │                                                               │
   │       Running sonarwhal with the default configuration.       │
   │                                                               │
   │   Learn more about how to create your own configuration at:   │
   │                                                               │
   │            https://sonarwhal.com/docs/user-guide/             │
   │                                                               │
   └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

[molant]

@jgarber623 that's the current expected behavior.

Our way of thinking is that if you are inside a project folder (aka something with a package.json) then sonarwhal should be installed/search things locally.

In general we would like users to install it locally instead of globally. That said, there are a couple things we could do to improve the experience:

• Do what you propose: even if there's a package.json search also in ~. I can't remember the problems we had with this scenario. Maybe something related to resource loading? @sarvaje do you remember?
• Don't allow to execute sonarwhal in a folder that has package.json and tell the user to install it locally
• Something else?

@sonarwhal/core thoughts?

[alrra]

Don't allow to execute sonarwhal in a folder that has package.json and tell the user to install it locally

Works for me.

---

If, for example, you run npm i inside a directory without a package.json file it will give you the following:

npm WARN saveError ENOENT: no such file or directory, open '/Users/xxxxx/projects/tmp/package.json'
npm notice created a lockfile as package-lock.json. You should commit this file.
npm WARN enoent ENOENT: no such file or directory, open '/Users/xxxxx/projects/tmp/package.json'
npm WARN tmp No description
npm WARN tmp No repository field.
npm WARN tmp No README data
npm WARN tmp No license field.

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[molant]

We've moved away from recommending installing webhint globally in 9f13687 because of issues like this one.

Going to close this as the scenario is not supported.