Linter versions compatibility with server versions

hello there :waving_hand:

lately i was asked to look into a sonarlint failure. Dev was using sonarlint in intellij.

After having enabled the verbose logging options i was sent a stacktrace which i will not copy here (because for my current question the causing failure is of no importance)

My interpretation of the stacktrace made me ponder if maybe the sq-server APIs might be more evolved than the sonarlint client libraries API (e.g. the server got updated to a newer version, but the client did not get updated)

So that brings me to the more abstract question(s):

  • does a table or smth like that already exist somewhere, that displays the minimum needed sonarlint-plugin-version needed to talk to a sq-server of a specific version?
  • (and: if “no, sry, dont have that”) Would you be open to creating such a list/table? (or api response? :person_shrugging: )

  • (and: if “no, sry, not gonna do that”) why is creating such a table not a choice to take?

So smth like this for commercial versioning-scheme:

SQ-Server intellij-sonarlint eclipse-sonarlint vscode-sonarlint
2025.3 >= 123.4 >=12.34 >=1.234
2025.2 >= 123.3 >=12.33 >=1.233

cheers
Daniel

P.S.: Maybe that all is unnecessary, because - out of precaution - sonarlint already yells into the logs when it finds that the server is “too new” to be understandable? :person_shrugging:

Hi Daniel,

Thank you for your question!

We expect users to always be using the latest version of SonarQube for IDE, as this is the only version we officially support, as documented for each IDE. As a result, we do not maintain or publish a compatibility table for older versions—it would not reflect our support policy, nor the way we approach compatibility testing.

Our focus is on ensuring that the most recent release of SonarQube for IDE works seamlessly with active versions of SonarQube. We do not specifically test older IDE clients against newer servers, nor do we guarantee backward compatibility in such configurations. Practically, this means that if a developer uses an outdated IDE plugin with a newer SonarQube server, unexpected issues may occur, and in some cases, SonarQube for IDE in Connected Mode won’t work as expected.

We believe encouraging users to stay current delivers the best experience overall.