Configure ESLint and Prettier to work together

Introduction

ESLint and Prettier are both useful tools to keep your code clean and to enforce a standard coding style in your projects.

They both provide some rules and formatting to achieve that, and they work fine when separate, but together, it can be tricky to make them work correctly.

The problem

I recently came across a small but slightly annoying issue with my development workflow, specifically while working on an update for my personal website, but also working on a client project and switching between the two projects during the day.

Both were TypeScript and React projects. The client project had defined rules for ESLint to work with Prettier, although it didn’t include a specific .prettierrc file.

The findings

Eventually, I found my workflow requiring two steps when formatting files in VS Code: format with ESLint and then format with Prettier. Each option applied different changes, but using both just made my code look the way I wanted it to.

So, I double checked the configuration in the client project, as it was not necessary to use both formatters in it, and it worked just fine with just ESLint.

Here’s the changes done in order to get both ESLint and Prettier working together, with a single formatter:

1. Install the dependencies

   yarn add -D eslint-config-prettier eslint-plugin-prettier prettier

   These dependencies are for development only, so that’s why they’re installed with the -D flag.

2. Update your config file to use the plugin

   {
     "extends": [
       ...
       "plugin:prettier/recommended"
     ],
     ...
     "plugins": [
       ...
       "prettier"
     ],
     ...
   }

3. 🎉 Enjoy!

Conclusion

After doing these changes I can finally format my code with a single formatter (ESLint) but applying the rules from both ESLint and Prettier, which was exactly what I was looking for.

If it does not work right away, try restarting the TypeScript server from VS Code’s command palette or restart VS Code.

I wrote this as a note to my future self, in case I find myself in a similar situation 😅 Anyway, I decided to share it in case it could help someone else too.