Covariant 'equals()'

Reports equals() that takes an argument type other than Any? if the class does not have another equals() that takes Any? as its argument type.

Example:

  class Foo {
      fun equals(other: Foo?): Boolean {
          return true
      }
  }

To fix the problem create equals() method that takes an argument of type Any?.

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.

-CovariantEquals

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 | Kotlin | Probable bugs

Inspection ID: KotlinCovariantEquals

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 -CovariantEquals

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

IntelliJ IDEA 2025.3

Inspection Details
By default bundled with:	IntelliJ IDEA 2025.3, Qodana for JVM 2025.3,

Last modified: 03 December 2025