Have you verified the value of cider-clojure-cli-global-options in the buffer with M-x describe-variable?

yes, it’s set

I think you need escaped double-quotes https://github.com/clojure-emacs/cider/pull/3224

Ok, i just found out it’s not picked up, globally it’s nil

ok, neither global-options nor cli-aliases variables are picked up

after changing I did a rever-buffer on the open buffer I was trying the jack in on

hm, is there a way to check if dir-locals is loaded?

I normally just kill the buffer (make sure it’s properly gone), reopen it, and inspect the variable

I’d also check in the docs which variables do the thing you want - looks like there’s also cider-clojure-cli-aliases

I think cli-alies is the correct one

hm, still not picked up … restarted emacs completely

Also check the value of enable-local-variables

I think it should be t to warn you on unsafe local variables

it’s set to t

Not sure what else to check apart from the syntax of your dir-locals.el

If I set the var via set-variable it works as expected

(clojure-mode .  ((cider-preferred-build-tool . clojure-cli)
                   (cider-clojure-cli-aliases . ":repl")))

that’s all there is to the .dir locals

Hm what if you use nil instead of clojure-mode?

nope, still not picked up

hm, maybe doom emacs is the issue