Configuration

The .lawlint/config.json schema, discovery rules, and how CLI flags override it.

Configuration is optional. Linting works with none at all.

// .lawlint/config.json — every field optional, camelCase
{
  "enable": ["no-em-dash", "no-hedging"],
  "disable": ["no-legalese"],
  "severity": { "no-em-dash": "suggestion" },
  "thresholds": { "no-hedging": 8 },
  "markdown": false,
  "ruleDirs": [".lawlint/rules"],
  "judge": { "enabled": false, "maxTokens": 16384 },
  "ai": {
    "model": "anthropic:claude-haiku-4-5-20251001",
    "features": { "judge": "...", "learn": "..." },
  }
}

Written by lawlint init. Safe to commit — API keys are never stored here.

Fields

judge

The defaults suit a capable hosted model. If you point lawlint at a small self-hosted model, lower contextChars and set perRule: false.

The two shaping fields are worth understanding together:

• perRule: true judges each rule in its own request, so a rule gets the model’s undivided attention and its own cache entry — adding a rule no longer invalidates the others. Each request carries the document, which is cheaper than it sounds: the document precedes the rubric in the prompt, so requests over one document share a prefix that providers bill at a discount.
• contextChars is also the cache granule. Raising it means fewer requests and more cross-section context; it also means an edit anywhere in a section re-runs that whole section. Lower it if you lint large documents on every keystroke.

ai

API keys are not part of this file. They live in ~/.lawlint/credentials (mode 0600) or in the environment — ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, OPENAI_API_KEY, AZURE_FOUNDRY_API_KEY — and the environment wins.

Discovery

The CLI walks up from the current directory. At each level it looks for .lawlint/config.json, falling back to the legacy lawlint.config.json. The first directory containing either is the project root.

If no project config is found, the CLI falls back to a user-level ~/.lawlint/config.json ($LAWLINT_HOME overrides the directory; the pre-0.8 ~/.config/lawlint/config.json is still read). This is what lets lawlint work on documents outside any project.

A project config layers over the user-level one field by field: whatever the project sets wins, and everything it leaves out keeps the user-level value. A repo that pins only ruleDirs still inherits your AI model.

If both exist at the same level, the nested .lawlint/config.json is used and the CLI warns.

Relative ruleDirs resolve against the project root, so a committed config works no matter which subdirectory you run from. Paths passed to --rule-dir resolve against the current directory instead.

Precedence

CLI flags override the config file, field by field:

severity and thresholds merge rather than replace: a CLI override applies to the named rule and leaves the rest of the map intact.