samber/golang-lint
skills/golang-lint/SKILL.md
Linting best practices and golangci-lint configuration for Golang projects — running linters, configuring .golangci.yml, suppressing warnings with nolint directives, interpreting lint output, and selecting linters. Use when configuring golangci-lint, asking about lint warnings or nolint suppressions, setting up code quality tooling, or choosing linters. Also use when the user mentions golangci-lint, go vet, staticcheck, or revive. Not for wiring a lint step into a GitHub Actions pipeline (→ See `samber/cc-skills-golang@golang-continuous-integration` skill).
$ install --global
skillsauthnpx skillsauth add samber/cc-skills-golang golang-lintInstall this skill globally with one command. Works with Claude Code, Cursor, and Windsurf.
Security Scan Results
3 of 9 scanners reported clean
Some scanners were skipped, did not run, or reported a non-clean status. Review each row below.
3
Scanners Passed
9
Scanners in report
Clean
TrivyContainer and dependency vulnerability scanner
95%
Clean
SemgrepStatic code analysis for vulnerabilities
95%
Clean
mcp-scan (Snyk)Model Context Protocol security validation
95%
Skipped
Snyk (dep)Open source security scanning
50%
Skipped
Socket.devSupply chain security analysis
50%
Skipped
VirusTotalMulti-engine malware detection
50%
Skipped
CrowdStrikeAdvanced threat intelligence
50%
Skipped
OSV-ScannerOpen Source Vulnerability database check
50%
Skipped
OWASP Dep-Check
50%
Last scanned: Sep 7, 2026, 3:11 AM65.3s4 files scanned
SKILL.md
- name:
- golang-lint
- description:
- Linting best practices and golangci-lint configuration for Golang projects — running linters, configuring .golangci.yml, suppressing warnings with nolint directives, interpreting lint output, and selecting linters. Use when configuring golangci-lint, asking about lint warnings or nolint suppressions, setting up code quality tooling, or choosing linters. Also use when the user mentions golangci-lint, go vet, staticcheck, or revive. Not for wiring a lint step into a GitHub Actions pipeline (→ See `samber/cc-skills-golang@golang-continuous-integration` skill).
- user-invocable:
- true
- license:
- MIT
- compatibility:
- Designed for Claude Code, Codex or similar harness, and for projects using Golang.
- author:
- samber
- version:
- 1.4.1
- emoji:
- 🧹
- homepage:
- https://github.com/samber/cc-skills-golang
- - kind:
- brew
- formula:
- golangci-lint
- bins:
- [golangci-lint]
- allowed-tools:
- Read Edit Write Glob Grep Bash(go:*) Bash(golangci-lint:*) Bash(git:*) Agent
Persona: You are a Go code quality engineer. You treat linting as a first-class part of the development workflow — not a post-hoc cleanup step.
Orchestration mode: Fan out the five sub-agents described in the "Parallelizing Legacy Codebase Cleanup" section (auto-fix, security linters, error handling, style/formatting, code quality) when adopting linting on a legacy codebase, so independent linter categories are fixed concurrently. On Claude Code, use ultracode to opt into multi-agent orchestration explicitly.
Modes:
- Setup mode — configuring
.golangci.yml, choosing linters, enabling CI: follow the configuration and workflow sections sequentially. - Coding mode — writing new Go code: launch a background agent running
golangci-lint run --fixon the modified files only while the main agent continues implementing the feature; surface results when it completes. - Interpret/fix mode — reading lint output, suppressing warnings, fixing issues on existing code: start from "Interpreting Output" and "Suppressing Lint Warnings"; use parallel sub-agents for large-scale legacy cleanup.
Dependencies:
- golangci-lint:
go install github.com/golangci/golangci-lint/cmd/golangci-lint@latest
Go Linting
Overview
golangci-lint is the standard Go linting tool. It aggregates 100+ linters into a single binary, runs them in parallel, and provides a unified configuration format. Run it frequently during development and always in CI.
Every Go project MUST have a .golangci.yml — it is the source of truth for which linters are enabled and how they are configured. See the recommended configuration for a production-ready setup with 48 linters enabled.
Quick Reference
# Run all configured linters
golangci-lint run ./...
# Auto-fix issues where possible
golangci-lint run --fix ./...
# Format code (golangci-lint v2+)
golangci-lint fmt ./...
# Run a single linter only
golangci-lint run --enable-only govet ./...
# List all available linters
golangci-lint linters
# Verbose output with timing info
golangci-lint run --verbose ./...
Configuration
The recommended .golangci.yml provides a production-ready setup with 33 linters. For configuration details, linter categories, and per-linter descriptions, see the linter reference — which linters check for what (correctness, style, complexity, performance, security), descriptions of all 33+ linters, and when each one is useful.
Suppressing Lint Warnings
Use //nolint directives sparingly — fix the root cause first.
// Good: specific linter + justification
//nolint:errcheck // fire-and-forget logging, error is not actionable
_ = logger.Sync()
// Bad: blanket suppression without reason
//nolint
_ = logger.Sync()
Rules:
- //nolint directives MUST specify the linter name:
//nolint:errchecknot//nolint - //nolint directives MUST include a justification comment:
//nolint:errcheck // reason - The
nolintlintlinter enforces both rules above — it flags bare//nolintand missing reasons - NEVER suppress security linters (gosec, bodyclose, sqlclosecheck) without a very strong reason
For comprehensive patterns and examples, see nolint directives — when to suppress, how to write justifications, patterns for per-line vs per-function suppression, and anti-patterns.
Development Workflow
- Linters SHOULD be run after every significant change:
golangci-lint run ./... - Auto-fix what you can:
golangci-lint run --fix ./... - Format before committing:
golangci-lint fmt ./... - Incremental adoption on legacy code: set
issues.new-from-revin.golangci.ymlto only lint new/changed code, then gradually clean up old code
Makefile targets (recommended):
lint:
golangci-lint run ./...
lint-fix:
golangci-lint run --fix ./...
fmt:
golangci-lint fmt ./...
For CI pipeline setup (GitHub Actions with golangci-lint-action), see the samber/cc-skills-golang@golang-continuous-integration skill.
Interpreting Output
Each issue follows this format:
path/to/file.go:42:10: message describing the issue (linter-name)
The linter name in parentheses tells you which linter flagged it. Use this to:
- Look up the linter in the reference to understand what it checks
- Suppress with
//nolint:linter-name // reasonif it's a false positive - Use
golangci-lint run --verbosefor additional context and timing
Common Issues
| Problem | Solution |
| --- | --- |
| "deadline exceeded" | Set or increase run.timeout in .golangci.yml; golangci-lint v2 defaults to no timeout (0) |
| Too many issues on legacy code | Set issues.new-from-rev: HEAD~1 to lint only new code |
| Linter not found | Check golangci-lint linters — linter may need a newer version |
| Conflicts between linters | Disable the less useful one with a comment explaining why |
| v1 config errors after upgrade | Run golangci-lint migrate to convert config format |
| Slow on large repos | Reduce run.concurrency or exclude paths with linters.exclusions.paths / formatters.exclusions.paths |
Parallelizing Legacy Codebase Cleanup
When adopting linting on a legacy codebase, use up to 5 parallel sub-agents to fix independent linter categories simultaneously:
- Sub-agent 1: Run
golangci-lint run --fix ./...for auto-fixable issues - Sub-agent 2: Fix security linter findings (bodyclose, sqlclosecheck, gosec)
- Sub-agent 3: Fix error handling issues (errcheck, nilerr, wrapcheck)
- Sub-agent 4: Fix style and formatting (gofumpt, goimports, revive)
- Sub-agent 5: Fix code quality (gocritic, unused, ineffassign)
Cross-References
- → See
samber/cc-skills-golang@golang-continuous-integrationskill for CI pipeline with golangci-lint-action - → See
samber/cc-skills-golang@golang-code-styleskill for style rules that linters enforce - → See
samber/cc-skills-golang@golang-securityskill for SAST tools beyond linting (gosec, govulncheck) - → See
samber/cc-skills-golang@golang-continuous-integrationskill for automated AI-driven code review in CI using these guidelines
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