Go Linting

Source: Uber Go Style Guide

Core Principle

More important than any “blessed” set of linters: lint consistently across a codebase.

Consistent linting helps catch common issues and establishes a high bar for code quality without being unnecessarily prescriptive.

Minimum Recommended Linters

Source: Uber Go Style Guide

These linters catch the most common issues while maintaining a high quality bar:

Note: revive is the modern, faster successor to the now-deprecated golint.

Lint Runner: golangci-lint

Source: Uber Go Style Guide

Use golangci-lint as your lint runner:

• Performance: Optimized for large codebases
• Unified config: Configure many linters at once
• Extensible: Add linters as needed for your project

See the example .golangci.yml from uber-go/guide.

Example Configuration

Create .golangci.yml in your project root:

linters:
  enable:
    - errcheck
    - goimports
    - revive
    - govet
    - staticcheck

linters-settings:
  goimports:
    local-prefixes: github.com/your-org/your-repo
  revive:
    rules:
      - name: blank-imports
      - name: context-as-argument
      - name: error-return
      - name: error-strings
      - name: exported

run:
  timeout: 5m

Running

# Install
go install github.com/golangci/golangci-lint/cmd/golangci-lint@latest

# Run all linters
golangci-lint run

# Run on specific paths
golangci-lint run ./pkg/...

Quick Reference

Linter Selection Guidelines

See Also

• For core style principles: go-style-core
• For testing best practices: go-testing