Conflic — Config Contradiction Detector

Your .nvmrc says Node 20. Your Dockerfile pulls node:22-alpine. Your package.json engines field requires >=18 <20. Which one is actually running in production?

If you've ever wasted hours debugging a deployment only to realize two config files disagreed about a version number, Conflic is for you. It scans your workspace, finds every place a version, port, or setting is declared, and tells you when they contradict each other — right inside your editor.

No more "works on my machine." No more silent config drift.

What does it look like?

When Conflic detects a contradiction, you'll see it immediately:

• Red/yellow squiggles on the exact line where the conflict lives
• Inline hints explaining what the conflict is and where the other value lives
• A sidebar panel with a bird's-eye view of every concept in your project
• A status bar counter showing how many issues remain

For example, open a project with a Dockerfile that says FROM node:22-alpine and a .nvmrc that says 20 — Conflic will underline both and explain the mismatch.

Getting started

1. Install the extension from the Marketplace
2. Open any project that has config files (Dockerfiles, package.json, .env, docker-compose, CI workflows, etc.)
3. That's it. Conflic activates automatically and starts scanning.

No configuration needed. It works out of the box.

If you want to customize behavior (suppress known issues, add custom extractors, enforce team policies), drop a .conflic.toml in your project root. More on that below.

What Conflic understands

Conflic ships with 35 built-in extractors that know how to read version pins, port declarations, and settings from common config formats:

It doesn't just do string comparison either. node:22-alpine, ^22, >=22 <23, and 22.0.0 are all recognized as the same major version thanks to semver-aware logic.

How severity works

Not every contradiction is equally bad. Conflic uses an authority model to decide how loud to yell:

The severity of a diagnostic depends on which authority levels are fighting:

Quick Fix

See a lightbulb icon on a contradiction? Click it (or press Ctrl+.). Conflic will offer to fix the value automatically.

The fix logic is simple: the highest-authority source wins. If your Dockerfile says node:22 (enforced) and .nvmrc says 20 (advisory), the quick fix updates .nvmrc to 22. If two enforced sources disagree with each other, Conflic marks it as unfixable — that's a decision only you can make.

Hover for context

Hover over any value that Conflic recognizes and you'll see:

• The concept name (e.g., "Node.js Version")
• The authority level of this particular declaration
• Every other file in your project that declares the same concept
• Whether there's a contradiction and with whom

This is especially useful in large projects where you might not even know that three different files all have opinions about your Python version.

Sidebar: Concept Overview

The Conflic sidebar (click the icon in the Activity Bar) gives you a tree view of every concept detected in your workspace:

• Concepts with contradictions are marked with warning/error icons
• Expand a concept to see every file that contributes a value
• Click any item to jump straight to the relevant line

It's like a table of contents for your project's configuration.

Commands

Open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P) and type "Conflic":

Settings

Configuration

Create a .conflic.toml in your project root for fine-grained control:

[conflic]
severity = "warning"
exclude = ["vendor/**", "node_modules/**"]

# Suppress a known contradiction you've already reviewed
[[ignore]]
rule = "VER001"
files = ["Dockerfile", ".nvmrc"]
reason = "Multi-stage build — final stage matches .nvmrc"

# Enforce team standards
[[policy]]
id = "POL001"
concept = "node-version"
rule = ">= 20"
severity = "error"
message = "Node 18 is EOL. All services must use Node 20+."

Custom extractors

Tracking something Conflic doesn't know about? Define your own:

[[custom_extractor]]
concept = "redis-version"
display_name = "Redis Version"
category = "runtime-version"
type = "version"
solver = "semver"

[[custom_extractor.source]]
file = "docker-compose.yml"
format = "yaml"
path = "services.redis.image"
pattern = "redis:(.*)"
authority = "enforced"

[[custom_extractor.source]]
file = ".env"
format = "env"
key = "REDIS_VERSION"
authority = "declared"

Now Conflic will flag it if your docker-compose.yml pulls redis:7 but .env says REDIS_VERSION=6.2.

Rule IDs

When you see a diagnostic, the code tells you what kind of contradiction it is:

Troubleshooting

Extension installed but no diagnostics appear?

1. Check the Output panel: View → Output → select "Conflic" from the dropdown
2. Make sure the binary is accessible: run conflic --help in your terminal, or set conflic.path in settings
3. The extension only activates when your workspace contains known config files (Dockerfile, package.json, .env, etc.)

Too many diagnostics?

• Raise the severity threshold: set conflic.severity to "error" in settings
• Suppress specific findings with [[ignore]] blocks in .conflic.toml
• Use conflic.autoScan: false to switch to manual scanning only

LSP server crashes?

• Check the Output panel for error details
• Try Ctrl+Shift+P → "Conflic: Restart Language Server"
• If the issue persists, set conflic.trace.server to "verbose" and open an issue with the log

Works great with

• GitHub Actions: Use the conflic GitHub Action to catch contradictions in CI before they reach production
• SARIF: Conflic can output SARIF for integration with GitHub Code Scanning
• Monorepos: Built-in support for per-package scanning with shared global concepts

Platform support

The extension bundles the conflic binary for Windows x64. On other platforms (macOS, Linux), install the CLI first:

cargo install conflic

The extension will automatically find it on your PATH.

Links

• GitHub — source code, issues, and full CLI documentation
• Changelog — what's new in each release
• crates.io — Rust crate page

License

MIT