When I integrated SonarLint into my VS solution, I got a SonarLint.xml file ref. for every project. I wonder, how it is used? Can I remove this reference? Couldn't find any documentation about it.
When I integrated SonarLint into my VS solution, I got a SonarLint.xml file ref. for every project.
This is needed and by-design. The file contains code quality rule parameters used by SonarLint. Example parameter:
<Rule>
<Key>S103</Key>
<Parameters>
<Parameter>
<Key>maximumLineLength</Key>
<Value>200</Value>
When you bind or update your solution from SonarQube, a master SonarLint.xml file gets downloaded into your solution's .sonarlint folder; and a soft-link file to this master file is added to every project being analyzed.
(The SonarLint NuGet apparently does not or cannot access the master SonarLint.xml file, so it needs a project-level SonarLint.xml soft-link file.)