golangci-lint
Fast Go linters aggregator — runs multiple Go linters (50+) in parallel with caching. Integrates staticcheck, revive, errcheck, govet, gosimple, and many others. Single configuration file (.golangci.yml) controls all linters. Standard Go code quality tool used in open source and enterprise Go projects. Significantly faster than running linters individually.
Score Breakdown
⚙ Agent Friendliness
🔒 Security
Static analysis tool — includes gosec for security checks. No network access during analysis.
⚡ Reliability
Best When
Go projects that need comprehensive code quality checking with a single tool and shared team configuration.
Avoid When
You only need formatting (use gofmt) or type checking (use go vet) — golangci-lint is overkill for single-linter needs.
Use Cases
- • Run all Go linters in CI pipelines with a single golangci-lint run command and structured output
- • Catch common bugs with errcheck (unchecked errors), govet (suspicious constructs), and staticcheck
- • Enforce code style with revive, gofmt, goimports across teams via shared .golangci.yml config
- • Identify security issues with gosec linter integrated into the golangci-lint pipeline
- • Configure per-project linter sets with different severity levels for errors vs warnings
Not For
- • Python, JavaScript, or other language linting — golangci-lint is Go-only
- • Deep semantic analysis — use go/analysis-based tools for language server integration
- • Automated code fixing — golangci-lint identifies issues but limited auto-fix; use gofmt/goimports for formatting
Interface
Authentication
CLI tool — no auth needed.
Pricing
GPL-3.0 licensed open source tool.
Agent Metadata
Known Gotchas
- ⚠ golangci-lint version must match .golangci.yml config schema version — upgrading the binary requires checking for config format changes
- ⚠ Linters enabled by default change between versions — always pin golangci-lint version in CI to avoid unexpected new lint failures on upgrades
- ⚠ Some linters (staticcheck, revive) have their own configuration sections in .golangci.yml — linter-specific config is nested under linters-settings
- ⚠ golangci-lint run runs on the current directory by default — pass ./... to lint all packages: golangci-lint run ./...
- ⚠ Cache directory may cause stale results — use golangci-lint cache clean if results seem incorrect after code changes
- ⚠ timeout default is 1 minute — large codebases need --timeout=5m or configured in .golangci.yml under run.timeout
Alternatives
Full Evaluation Report
Detailed scoring breakdown, competitive positioning, security analysis, and improvement recommendations for golangci-lint.
Scores are editorial opinions as of 2026-03-06.