Configuration

The config file has lower priority than command-line options. If the same bool/string/int option is provided on the command-line and in the config file, the option from command-line will be used. Slice options (e.g. list of enabled/disabled linters) are combined from the command-line and config file.

To see a list of enabled by your configuration linters:

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golangci-lint linters

Command-Line Options

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golangci-lint run -h
Usage:
  golangci-lint run [flags]
Flags:
      --out-format string              Format of output: colored-line-number|line-number|json|tab|checkstyle|code-climate|junit-xml|github-actions (default "colored-line-number")
      --print-issued-lines             Print lines of code with issue (default true)
      --print-linter-name              Print linter name in issue line (default true)
      --uniq-by-line                   Make issues output unique by line (default true)
      --modules-download-mode string   Modules download mode. If not empty, passed as -mod=<mode> to go tools
      --issues-exit-code int           Exit code when issues were found (default 1)
      --build-tags strings             Build tags
      --timeout duration               Timeout for total work (default 1m0s)
      --tests                          Analyze tests (*_test.go) (default true)
      --print-resources-usage          Print avg and max memory usage of golangci-lint and total time
  -c, --config PATH                    Read config from file path PATH
      --no-config                      Don't read config
      --skip-dirs strings              Regexps of directories to skip
      --skip-dirs-use-default          Use or not use default excluded directories:
                                         - (^|/)vendor($|/)
                                         - (^|/)third_party($|/)
                                         - (^|/)testdata($|/)
                                         - (^|/)examples($|/)
                                         - (^|/)Godeps($|/)
                                         - (^|/)builtin($|/)
                                        (default true)
      --skip-files strings             Regexps of files to skip
      --allow-parallel-runners         Allow multiple parallel golangci-lint instances running. If false (default) - golangci-lint acquires file lock on start.
  -E, --enable strings                 Enable specific linter
  -D, --disable strings                Disable specific linter
      --disable-all                    Disable all linters
  -p, --presets strings                Enable presets (bugs|complexity|format|performance|style|unused) of linters. Run 'golangci-lint linters' to see them. This option implies option --disable-all
      --fast                           Run only fast linters from enabled linters set (first run won't be fast)
  -e, --exclude strings                Exclude issue by regexp
      --exclude-use-default            Use or not use default excludes:
                                         # EXC0001 errcheck: Almost all programs ignore errors on these functions and in most cases it's ok
                                         - Error return value of .((os\.)?std(out|err)\..*|.*Close|.*Flush|os\.Remove(All)?|.*print(f|ln)?|os\.(Un)?Setenv). is not checked
                                       
                                         # EXC0002 golint: Annoying issue about not having a comment. The rare codebase has such comments
                                         - (comment on exported (method|function|type|const)|should have( a package)? comment|comment should be of the form)
                                       
                                         # EXC0003 golint: False positive when tests are defined in package 'test'
                                         - func name will be used as test\.Test.* by other packages, and that stutters; consider calling this
                                       
                                         # EXC0004 govet: Common false positives
                                         - (possible misuse of unsafe.Pointer|should have signature)
                                       
                                         # EXC0005 staticcheck: Developers tend to write in C-style with an explicit 'break' in a 'switch', so it's ok to ignore
                                         - ineffective break statement. Did you mean to break out of the outer loop
                                       
                                         # EXC0006 gosec: Too many false-positives on 'unsafe' usage
                                         - Use of unsafe calls should be audited
                                       
                                         # EXC0007 gosec: Too many false-positives for parametrized shell calls
                                         - Subprocess launch(ed with variable|ing should be audited)
                                       
                                         # EXC0008 gosec: Duplicated errcheck checks
                                         - (G104|G307)
                                       
                                         # EXC0009 gosec: Too many issues in popular repos
                                         - (Expect directory permissions to be 0750 or less|Expect file permissions to be 0600 or less)
                                       
                                         # EXC0010 gosec: False positive is triggered by 'src, err := ioutil.ReadFile(filename)'
                                         - Potential file inclusion via variable
                                        (default true)
      --exclude-case-sensitive         If set to true exclude and exclude rules regular expressions are case sensitive
      --max-issues-per-linter int      Maximum issues count per one linter. Set to 0 to disable (default 50)
      --max-same-issues int            Maximum count of issues with the same text. Set to 0 to disable (default 3)
  -n, --new                            Show only new issues: if there are unstaged changes or untracked files, only those changes are analyzed, else only changes in HEAD~ are analyzed.
                                       It's a super-useful option for integration of golangci-lint into existing large codebase.
                                       It's not practical to fix all existing issues at the moment of integration: much better to not allow issues in new code.
                                       For CI setups, prefer --new-from-rev=HEAD~, as --new can skip linting the current patch if any scripts generate unstaged files before golangci-lint runs.
      --new-from-rev REV               Show only new issues created after git revision REV
      --new-from-patch PATH            Show only new issues created in git patch with file path PATH
      --fix                            Fix found issues (if it's supported by the linter)
  -h, --help                           help for run
Global Flags:
      --color string              Use color when printing; can be 'always', 'auto', or 'never' (default "auto")
  -j, --concurrency int           Concurrency (default NumCPU) (default 8)
      --cpu-profile-path string   Path to CPU profile output file
      --mem-profile-path string   Path to memory profile output file
      --trace-path string         Path to trace output file
  -v, --verbose                   verbose output
      --version                   Print version

Config File

GolangCI-Lint looks for config files in the following paths from the current working directory:

• .golangci.yml
• .golangci.toml
• .golangci.json

GolangCI-Lint also searches for config files in all directories from the directory of the first analyzed path up to the root. To see which config file is being used and where it was sourced from run golangci-lint with -v option.

Config options inside the file are identical to command-line options. You can configure specific linters' options only within the config file (not the command-line).

There is a .golangci.example.yml example config file with all supported options, their description and default value:

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# This file contains all available configuration options
# with their default values.
# options for analysis running
run:
  # default concurrency is a available CPU number
  concurrency: 4
  # timeout for analysis, e.g. 30s, 5m, default is 1m
  timeout: 1m
  # exit code when at least one issue was found, default is 1
  issues-exit-code: 1
  # include test files or not, default is true
  tests: true
  # list of build tags, all linters use it. Default is empty list.
  build-tags:
    - mytag
  # which dirs to skip: issues from them won't be reported;
  # can use regexp here: generated.*, regexp is applied on full path;
  # default value is empty list, but default dirs are skipped independently
  # from this option's value (see skip-dirs-use-default).
  # "/" will be replaced by current OS file path separator to properly work
  # on Windows.
  skip-dirs:
    - src/external_libs
    - autogenerated_by_my_lib
  # default is true. Enables skipping of directories:
  #   vendor$, third_party$, testdata$, examples$, Godeps$, builtin$
  skip-dirs-use-default: true
  # which files to skip: they will be analyzed, but issues from them
  # won't be reported. Default value is empty list, but there is
  # no need to include all autogenerated files, we confidently recognize
  # autogenerated files. If it's not please let us know.
  # "/" will be replaced by current OS file path separator to properly work
  # on Windows.
  skip-files:
    - ".*\\.my\\.go$"
    - lib/bad.go
  # by default isn't set. If set we pass it to "go list -mod={option}". From "go help modules":
  # If invoked with -mod=readonly, the go command is disallowed from the implicit
  # automatic updating of go.mod described above. Instead, it fails when any changes
  # to go.mod are needed. This setting is most useful to check that go.mod does
  # not need updates, such as in a continuous integration and testing system.
  # If invoked with -mod=vendor, the go command assumes that the vendor
  # directory holds the correct copies of dependencies and ignores
  # the dependency descriptions in go.mod.
  modules-download-mode: readonly|release|vendor
  # Allow multiple parallel golangci-lint instances running.
  # If false (default) - golangci-lint acquires file lock on start.
  allow-parallel-runners: false
# output configuration options
output:
  # colored-line-number|line-number|json|tab|checkstyle|code-climate, default is "colored-line-number"
  format: colored-line-number
  # print lines of code with issue, default is true
  print-issued-lines: true
  # print linter name in the end of issue text, default is true
  print-linter-name: true
  # make issues output unique by line, default is true
  uniq-by-line: true
# all available settings of specific linters
linters-settings:
  dogsled:
    # checks assignments with too many blank identifiers; default is 2
    max-blank-identifiers: 2
  dupl:
    # tokens count to trigger issue, 150 by default
    threshold: 100
  errcheck:
    # report about not checking of errors in type assertions: `a := b.(MyStruct)`;
    # default is false: such cases aren't reported by default.
    check-type-assertions: false
    # report about assignment of errors to blank identifier: `num, _ := strconv.Atoi(numStr)`;
    # default is false: such cases aren't reported by default.
    check-blank: false
    # [deprecated] comma-separated list of pairs of the form pkg:regex
    # the regex is used to ignore names within pkg. (default "fmt:.*").
    # see https://github.com/kisielk/errcheck#the-deprecated-method for details
    ignore: fmt:.*,io/ioutil:^Read.*
    # path to a file containing a list of functions to exclude from checking
    # see https://github.com/kisielk/errcheck#excluding-functions for details
    exclude: /path/to/file.txt
  funlen:
    lines: 60
    statements: 40
  gocognit:
    # minimal code complexity to report, 30 by default (but we recommend 10-20)
    min-complexity: 10
  nestif:
    # minimal complexity of if statements to report, 5 by default
    min-complexity: 4
  goconst:
    # minimal length of string constant, 3 by default
    min-len: 3
    # minimal occurrences count to trigger, 3 by default
    min-occurrences: 3
  gocritic:
    # Which checks should be enabled; can't be combined with 'disabled-checks';
    # See https://go-critic.github.io/overview#checks-overview
    # To check which checks are enabled run `GL_DEBUG=gocritic golangci-lint run`
    # By default list of stable checks is used.
    enabled-checks:
      - rangeValCopy
    # Which checks should be disabled; can't be combined with 'enabled-checks'; default is empty
    disabled-checks:
      - regexpMust
    # Enable multiple checks by tags, run `GL_DEBUG=gocritic golangci-lint run` to see all tags and checks.
    # Empty list by default. See https://github.com/go-critic/go-critic#usage -> section "Tags".
    enabled-tags:
      - performance
    disabled-tags:
      - experimental
    settings: # settings passed to gocritic
      captLocal: # must be valid enabled check name
        paramsOnly: true
      rangeValCopy:
        sizeThreshold: 32
  gocyclo:
    # minimal code complexity to report, 30 by default (but we recommend 10-20)
    min-complexity: 10
  godot:
    # check all top-level comments, not only declarations
    check-all: false
  godox:
    # report any comments starting with keywords, this is useful for TODO or FIXME comments that
    # might be left in the code accidentally and should be resolved before merging
    keywords: # default keywords are TODO, BUG, and FIXME, these can be overwritten by this setting
      - NOTE
      - OPTIMIZE # marks code that should be optimized before merging
      - HACK # marks hack-arounds that should be removed before merging
  gofmt:
    # simplify code: gofmt with `-s` option, true by default
    simplify: true
  goimports:
    # put imports beginning with prefix after 3rd-party packages;
    # it's a comma-separated list of prefixes
    local-prefixes: github.com/org/project
  golint:
    # minimal confidence for issues, default is 0.8
    min-confidence: 0.8
  gomnd:
    settings:
      mnd:
        # the list of enabled checks, see https://github.com/tommy-muehle/go-mnd/#checks for description.
        checks: argument,case,condition,operation,return,assign
  gomodguard:
    allowed:
      modules:                                                        # List of allowed modules
        # - gopkg.in/yaml.v2
      domains:                                                        # List of allowed module domains
        # - golang.org
    blocked:
      modules:                                                        # List of blocked modules
        # - github.com/uudashr/go-module:                             # Blocked module
        #     recommendations:                                        # Recommended modules that should be used instead (Optional)
        #       - golang.org/x/mod                           
        #     reason: "`mod` is the official go.mod parser library."  # Reason why the recommended module should be used (Optional)
      versions:                                                       # List of blocked module version constraints
        # - github.com/mitchellh/go-homedir:                          # Blocked module with version constraint
        #     version: "< 1.1.0"                                      # Version constraint, see https://github.com/Masterminds/semver#basic-comparisons
        #     reason: "testing if blocked version constraint works."  # Reason why the version constraint exists. (Optional)
  govet:
    # report about shadowed variables
    check-shadowing: true
    # settings per analyzer
    settings:
      printf: # analyzer name, run `go tool vet help` to see all analyzers
        funcs: # run `go tool vet help printf` to see available settings for `printf` analyzer
          - (github.com/golangci/golangci-lint/pkg/logutils.Log).Infof
          - (github.com/golangci/golangci-lint/pkg/logutils.Log).Warnf
          - (github.com/golangci/golangci-lint/pkg/logutils.Log).Errorf
          - (github.com/golangci/golangci-lint/pkg/logutils.Log).Fatalf
    # enable or disable analyzers by name
    enable:
      - atomicalign
    enable-all: false
    disable:
      - shadow
    disable-all: false
  depguard:
    list-type: blacklist
    include-go-root: false
    packages:
      - github.com/sirupsen/logrus
    packages-with-error-message:
      # specify an error message to output when a blacklisted package is used
      - github.com/sirupsen/logrus: "logging is allowed only by logutils.Log"
  lll:
    # max line length, lines longer will be reported. Default is 120.
    # '\t' is counted as 1 character by default, and can be changed with the tab-width option
    line-length: 120
    # tab width in spaces. Default to 1.
    tab-width: 1
  maligned:
    # print struct with more effective memory layout or not, false by default
    suggest-new: true
  misspell:
    # Correct spellings using locale preferences for US or UK.
    # Default is to use a neutral variety of English.
    # Setting locale to US will correct the British spelling of 'colour' to 'color'.
    locale: US
    ignore-words:
      - someword
  nakedret:
    # make an issue if func has more lines of code than this setting and it has naked returns; default is 30
    max-func-lines: 30
  prealloc:
    # XXX: we don't recommend using this linter before doing performance profiling.
    # For most programs usage of prealloc will be a premature optimization.
    # Report preallocation suggestions only on simple loops that have no returns/breaks/continues/gotos in them.
    # True by default.
    simple: true
    range-loops: true # Report preallocation suggestions on range loops, true by default
    for-loops: false # Report preallocation suggestions on for loops, false by default
  nolintlint:
    # Enable to ensure that nolint directives are all used. Default is true.
    allow-unused: false
    # Disable to ensure that nolint directives don't have a leading space. Default is true.
    allow-leading-space: true
    # Exclude following linters from requiring an explanation.  Default is [].
    allow-no-explanation: []
    # Enable to require an explanation after each nolint directive. Default is false.
    require-explanation: true
    # Enable to require an explanation after each nolint directive. Default is false.
    require-specific: true
  rowserrcheck:
    packages:
      - github.com/jmoiron/sqlx
  testpackage:
    # regexp pattern to skip files
    skip-regexp: (export|internal)_test\.go
  unparam:
    # Inspect exported functions, default is false. Set to true if no external program/library imports your code.
    # XXX: if you enable this setting, unparam will report a lot of false-positives in text editors:
    # if it's called for subdir of a project it can't find external interfaces. All text editor integrations
    # with golangci-lint call it on a directory with the changed file.
    check-exported: false
  unused:
    # treat code as a program (not a library) and report unused exported identifiers; default is false.
    # XXX: if you enable this setting, unused will report a lot of false-positives in text editors:
    # if it's called for subdir of a project it can't find funcs usages. All text editor integrations
    # with golangci-lint call it on a directory with the changed file.
    check-exported: false
  whitespace:
    multi-if: false   # Enforces newlines (or comments) after every multi-line if statement
    multi-func: false # Enforces newlines (or comments) after every multi-line function signature
  wsl:
    # If true append is only allowed to be cuddled if appending value is
    # matching variables, fields or types on line above. Default is true.
    strict-append: true
    # Allow calls and assignments to be cuddled as long as the lines have any
    # matching variables, fields or types. Default is true.
    allow-assign-and-call: true
    # Allow multiline assignments to be cuddled. Default is true.
    allow-multiline-assign: true
    # Allow declarations (var) to be cuddled.
    allow-cuddle-declarations: false
    # Allow trailing comments in ending of blocks
    allow-trailing-comment: false
    # Force newlines in end of case at this limit (0 = never).
    force-case-trailing-whitespace: 0
    # Force cuddling of err checks with err var assignment
    force-err-cuddling: false
    # Allow leading comments to be separated with empty liens
    allow-separated-leading-comment: false
  # The custom section can be used to define linter plugins to be loaded at runtime. See README doc
  #  for more info.
  custom:
    # Each custom linter should have a unique name.
     example:
      # The path to the plugin *.so. Can be absolute or local. Required for each custom linter
      path: /path/to/example.so
      # The description of the linter. Optional, just for documentation purposes.
      description: This is an example usage of a plugin linter.
      # Intended to point to the repo location of the linter. Optional, just for documentation purposes.
      original-url: github.com/golangci/example-linter
linters:
  enable:
    - megacheck
    - govet
  disable:
    - maligned
    - prealloc
  disable-all: false
  presets:
    - bugs
    - unused
  fast: false
issues:
  # List of regexps of issue texts to exclude, empty list by default.
  # But independently from this option we use default exclude patterns,
  # it can be disabled by `exclude-use-default: false`. To list all
  # excluded by default patterns execute `golangci-lint run --help`
  exclude:
    - abcdef
  # Excluding configuration per-path, per-linter, per-text and per-source
  exclude-rules:
    # Exclude some linters from running on tests files.
    - path: _test\.go
      linters:
        - gocyclo
        - errcheck
        - dupl
        - gosec
    # Exclude known linters from partially hard-vendored code,
    # which is impossible to exclude via "nolint" comments.
    - path: internal/hmac/
      text: "weak cryptographic primitive"
      linters:
        - gosec
    # Exclude some staticcheck messages
    - linters:
        - staticcheck
      text: "SA9003:"
    # Exclude lll issues for long lines with go:generate
    - linters:
        - lll
      source: "^//go:generate "
  # Independently from option `exclude` we use default exclude patterns,
  # it can be disabled by this option. To list all
  # excluded by default patterns execute `golangci-lint run --help`.
  # Default value for this option is true.
  exclude-use-default: false
  # The default value is false. If set to true exclude and exclude-rules
  # regular expressions become case sensitive.
  exclude-case-sensitive: false
  # The list of ids of default excludes to include or disable. By default it's empty.
  include:
    - EXC0002 # disable excluding of issues about comments from golint
  # Maximum issues count per one linter. Set to 0 to disable. Default is 50.
  max-issues-per-linter: 0
  # Maximum count of issues with the same text. Set to 0 to disable. Default is 3.
  max-same-issues: 0
  # Show only new issues: if there are unstaged changes or untracked files,
  # only those changes are analyzed, else only changes in HEAD~ are analyzed.
  # It's a super-useful option for integration of golangci-lint into existing
  # large codebase. It's not practical to fix all existing issues at the moment
  # of integration: much better don't allow issues in new code.
  # Default is false.
  new: false
  # Show only new issues created after git revision `REV`
  new-from-rev: REV
  # Show only new issues created in git patch with set file path.
  new-from-patch: path/to/patch/file

It's a .golangci.yml config file of this repo: we enable more linters than the default and have more strict settings:

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linters-settings:
  depguard:
    list-type: blacklist
    packages:
      # logging is allowed only by logutils.Log, logrus
      # is allowed to use only in logutils package
      - github.com/sirupsen/logrus
    packages-with-error-message:
      - github.com/sirupsen/logrus: "logging is allowed only by logutils.Log"
  dupl:
    threshold: 100
  funlen:
    lines: 100
    statements: 50
  goconst:
    min-len: 2
    min-occurrences: 2
  gocritic:
    enabled-tags:
      - diagnostic
      - experimental
      - opinionated
      - performance
      - style
    disabled-checks:
      - dupImport # https://github.com/go-critic/go-critic/issues/845
      - ifElseChain
      - octalLiteral
      - whyNoLint
      - wrapperFunc
  gocyclo:
    min-complexity: 15
  goimports:
    local-prefixes: github.com/golangci/golangci-lint
  golint:
    min-confidence: 0
  gomnd:
    settings:
      mnd:
        # don't include the "operation" and "assign"
        checks: argument,case,condition,return
  govet:
    check-shadowing: true
    settings:
      printf:
        funcs:
          - (github.com/golangci/golangci-lint/pkg/logutils.Log).Infof
          - (github.com/golangci/golangci-lint/pkg/logutils.Log).Warnf
          - (github.com/golangci/golangci-lint/pkg/logutils.Log).Errorf
          - (github.com/golangci/golangci-lint/pkg/logutils.Log).Fatalf
  lll:
    line-length: 140
  maligned:
    suggest-new: true
  misspell:
    locale: US
  nolintlint:
    allow-leading-space: true # don't require machine-readable nolint directives (i.e. with no leading space)
    allow-unused: false # report any unused nolint directives
    require-explanation: false # don't require an explanation for nolint directives
    require-specific: false # don't require nolint directives to be specific about which linter is being skipped
linters:
  # please, do not use `enable-all`: it's deprecated and will be removed soon.
  # inverted configuration with `enable-all` and `disable` is not scalable during updates of golangci-lint
  disable-all: true
  enable:
    - bodyclose
    - deadcode
    - depguard
    - dogsled
    - dupl
    - errcheck
    - funlen
    - gochecknoinits
    - goconst
    - gocritic
    - gocyclo
    - gofmt
    - goimports
    - golint
    - gomnd
    - goprintffuncname
    - gosec
    - gosimple
    - govet
    - ineffassign
    - interfacer
    - lll
    - misspell
    - nakedret
    - nolintlint
    - rowserrcheck
    - scopelint
    - staticcheck
    - structcheck
    - stylecheck
    - typecheck
    - unconvert
    - unparam
    - unused
    - varcheck
    - whitespace
  # don't enable:
  # - asciicheck
  # - gochecknoglobals
  # - gocognit
  # - godot
  # - godox
  # - goerr113
  # - maligned
  # - nestif
  # - prealloc
  # - testpackage
  # - wsl
issues:
  # Excluding configuration per-path, per-linter, per-text and per-source
  exclude-rules:
    - path: _test\.go
      linters:
        - gomnd
run:
  skip-dirs:
    - test/testdata_etc
    - internal/cache
    - internal/renameio
    - internal/robustio
# golangci.com configuration
# https://github.com/golangci/golangci/wiki/Configuration
service:
  golangci-lint-version: 1.23.x # use the fixed version to not introduce new linters unexpectedly
  prepare:
    - echo "here I can run custom commands, but no preparation needed for this repo"