Mismatch between Javadoc and code

Reports parts of method specification written in English that contradict with the method declaration. This includes:

Method specified to return true or false but its return type is not boolean.
Method specified to return null but it's annotated as @NotNull or its return type is primitive.
Method specified to return list but its return type is set or array.
And so on.

Example:

  /**
   * @return true if user is found, false otherwise
   */
  User findUser(String name);

Note that false-positives are possible, as this inspection tries to interpret a human language. However, if the inspection reports incorrectly, it's still possible that the description is confusing and should be rewritten.

Locating this inspection

By ID

Can be used to locate inspection in e.g. Qodana configuration files, where you can quickly enable or disable it, or adjust its settings.

MismatchedJavadocCode

Via Settings dialog

Path to the inspection settings via IntelliJ Platform IDE Settings dialog, when you need to adjust inspection settings directly from your IDE.

Settings or Preferences | Editor | Inspections | Java | Javadoc

New in 2022.3

Suppressing Inspection

You can suppress this inspection by placing the following comment marker before the code fragment where you no longer want messages from this inspection to appear:

//noinspection MismatchedJavadocCode

More detailed instructions as well as other ways and options that you have can be found in the product documentation:

IntelliJ IDEA 2025.2

Inspection Details
By default bundled with:	IntelliJ IDEA 2025.2, Qodana for JVM 2025.2,

Last modified: 18 September 2025