How to disable the unused imports deletion in the VSCode extension?

[PaulRBerg]

This is my Biome config file:

Toggle to see `biome.jsonc` file

{
  "$schema": "./node_modules/@biomejs/biome/configuration_schema.json",
  "files": {
    "ignoreUnknown": false,
    "ignore": ["/dist/"],
    "include": ["*.js", "*.json", "*.jsonc", "*.ts"],
    "maxSize": 5242880 // 5MB
  },
  "formatter": {
    "enabled": true,
    "indentStyle": "space",
    "lineWidth": 120
  },
  "javascript": {
    "formatter": {
      "quoteStyle": "double"
    }
  },
  "linter": {
    "enabled": true,
    "rules": {
      "correctness": {
        "noUnusedImports": "error",
        "noUnusedVariables": "error"
      },
      "recommended": true
    }
  },
  "organizeImports": {
    "enabled": true
  },
  "overrides": [
    {
      "include": ["tests/*"],
      "linter": {
        "rules": {
          "suspicious": {
            "noFocusedTests": "off"
          }
        }
      }
    }
  ],
  "vcs": {
    "clientKind": "git",
    "enabled": true,
    "useIgnoreFile": true
  }
}

And this is my VSCode settings.json:

{
  "biome.enabled": true,
  "editor.codeActionsOnSave": {
    "quickfix.biome": "always",
    "source.organizeImports.biome": "always"
  },
  "[javascript][json][jsonc][typescript]": {
    "editor.defaultFormatter": "biomejs.biome"
  },
  "[md][yaml]": {
    "editor.defaultFormatter": "esbenp.prettier-vscode"
  },
  "typescript.tsdk": "node_modules/typescript/lib"
}

The setup works well, but I don't like the fact that Biome removed unused imports while I am developing in VSCode. I would like to apply the rule only when Biome is run via the CLI.

How can I do this?

[PaulRBerg]

cc @nhedger sorry for the tag but I'm trying to convince our team to move to Biome and this particular issue is somewhat of a blocker for development 🙏

I thought about creating multiple config files but it looks like the name of biome.json cannot be changed.

[ematipico]

And yes, I'm talking specifically about noUnusedImports lint rule. I want to disable the rule while coding, but not when the CLI is used.

The Biome LSP only applies safe fixes on save, which means that you need to make the code fix of the rule unsafe: https://biomejs.dev/linter/#configure-the-rule-fix

[PaulRBerg]

I see. That worked. Thanks so much for your help @ematipico.

But this means that I would have to add --unsafe to my biome check --write command.

Are there any other unsafe rules that will apply from now on, or users have to manually configure what rules they deem unsafe, and by default, all rules are treated as safe?

[PaulRBerg]

I think what's needed here is one of the following:

1. A new setting in the VSCode extension for overriding this particular lint rule (or, more generally, any rule)
2. A new CLI flag for enabling/disabling the noUnusedImports rule, similar to --organize-imports-enabled

I can open an issue if you agree.

[ematipico]

Please, open a discussion in the core repository if you want to suggest new features.

A new setting in the VSCode extension for overriding this particular lint rule (or, more generally, any rule)

v2 will have something like that (the infrastructure is there), but it needs some tuning, so we don't document it yet.

A new CLI flag for enabling/disabling the noUnusedImports rule,

They already exist. You can use --only or --skip, which is available in the lint command.

[PaulRBerg]

biomejs/biome#6060

[PaulRBerg]

For anyone stumbling upon this discussion from search engines, this is what I ended up doing:

// package.json
{
  "scripts": {
    "biome:check": "biome check .",
    "biome:write": "biome check --write . && bun run biome:write:imports",
    "biome:write:imports": "biome lint --write --only correctness/noUnusedImports ."
}

This is not ideal but it works now. It would be much easier if we could disable particular Biome rules in the VSCode settings.