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A finding is what MergeGuide reports when your code doesn’t satisfy a policy. This page explains what’s in a finding and how to act on it.

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Anatomy of a finding

Each finding tells you:
  • File and line — where the issue is in your code.
  • Severity — how serious it is (critical / high / medium / low), and whether it blocks, per your thresholds.
  • Message — what the issue is, in plain language.
  • Remediation guidance — how to fix it.
Text output prints one finding per issue with these details, then exits with a code that reflects whether anything blocking was found.

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Act on a finding

1

Read the message and guidance

The finding states the problem and a suggested fix. Start there.
2

Open the file at the reported line

Go to the file and line in the finding and make the change.
3

Re-run the check

A fixed finding no longer appears. The run exits 0 when nothing blocking remains.

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Low-confidence findings

Low-confidence findings are hidden from text output by default to keep the signal high. To see them:

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Suppress a finding

When a finding is a known, accepted exception, you can stop a specific policy from firing across a project by disabling it in config:
.mergeguide/config.yaml
To exclude paths entirely (for example, generated code or vendored dependencies):
.mergeguide/config.yaml
Suppressing a finding turns off a control. Disable a policy or exclude a path only when you’ve reviewed the finding and accept the exception — and keep the scope as narrow as possible.

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Machine-readable output

For dashboards, CI, or your IDE’s problems panel, emit JSON or SARIF instead of text:
See Output formats.

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Next steps

Enforcement layers

Where findings surface in your workflow.

Dashboard

Review findings across your repositories.