data_source_mismatch_penalty (default: 0.5)

Penalty applied when the data source of a match candidate differs from the original source of your existing tracks. Any decimal number between 0.0 and 1.0

This setting controls how much to penalize matches from different metadata sources during import. The penalty is applied when beets detects that a match candidate comes from a different data source than what appears to be the original source of your music collection.

Example configurations:

# Prefer MusicBrainz over Discogs when sources don't match
plugins: musicbrainz discogs

musicbrainz:
    data_source_mismatch_penalty: 0.3  # Lower penalty = preferred
discogs:
    data_source_mismatch_penalty: 0.8  # Higher penalty = less preferred

# Do not penalise candidates from Discogs at all
plugins: musicbrainz discogs

musicbrainz:
    data_source_mismatch_penalty: 0.5
discogs:
    data_source_mismatch_penalty: 0.0

# Disable cross-source penalties entirely
plugins: musicbrainz discogs

musicbrainz:
    data_source_mismatch_penalty: 0.0
discogs:
    data_source_mismatch_penalty: 0.0

Tip

The last configuration is equivalent to setting:

match:
    distance_weights:
        data_source: 0.0  # Disable data source matching

source_weight (default: 0.5)

Deprecated since version 2.5: Use data_source_mismatch_penalty instead.

search_limit (default: 5)

Maximum number of search results to return.