Ability to run golangci_lint in a specific directory / change project directory for linter

[angelahnicole]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

It'd be nice to be able to run golangci_lint in a sub-directory of a golang repository so megalinter works for projects that are structured like this:

.
├── .mega-linter.yml
├── README.md
├── src
│   ├── cmd
│   │   └── myservice
│   │       └── main.go
│   ├── .golangci.yml
│   ├── go.mod
│   └── go.sum
└── terraform

Currently this does not work because golangci_lint is ran in the top-level directory where there isn't a go.mod or go.sum file, and so you get this error:

❌ Linted [GO] files with [golangci-lint]: Found 1 error(s) - (0.74s)
- Using [golangci-lint v1.59.1] https://megalinter.io/7.13.0/descriptors/go_golangci_lint
- MegaLinter key: [GO_GOLANGCI_LINT]
- Rules config: [.golangci.yml]
--Error detail:
level=error msg="[linters_context] typechecking error: pattern ./...: directory prefix . does not contain main module or its selected dependencies"

Describe the solution you'd like

It'd be nice to specify something like this in `.mega-linter.yml:

GO_PROJECT_DIRECTORY: ./src

And have megalinter basically do a cd ./src before running golangci_lint.

Describe alternatives you've considered

I've tried passing in a different lint mode and regex like so:

GO_GOLANGCI_LINT_CLI_LINT_MODE: list_of_files
GO_FILTER_REGEX_INCLUDE: (src/)

But it doesn't work since only project is supported for GO_GOLANGCI_LINT_CLI_LINT_MODE.

I also looked into updating GO_GOLANGCI_LINT_ARGUMENTS somehow, but golangci_lint seems to need the go.mod and go.sum files in the directory that it's ran from and there is no way to specify them.

Additional context

N/A

[nvuillam]

@angelahnicole it seems that golangci_lint allows to specify folders to analyze (sources: ChatGPT & golangci doc)

Please can you try these solutions and confirm if it works ?

Using command line

Add in .mega-linter.yml

GO_GOLANGCI_LINT_ARGUMENTS: ["./src"]

Using ENV variable

GOLANGCI_LINT_DIR=./src

Using configuration file .golangci.yml

run:
  # List of directories to include
  # "." means current directory; you can specify "src" here
  dirs:
    - ./src

[angelahnicole]

Hey @nvuillam! We did try that, but it doesn't work :/

error when we added GO_GOLANGCI_LINT_ARGUMENTS: ["src/"]:

�[31m❌ Linted [GO] files with [golangci-lint]: Found 1 error(s) - (0.42s)�[0m
- Using [golangci-lint v1.62.0] https://megalinter.io/8.3.0/descriptors/go_golangci_lint
- MegaLinter key: [GO_GOLANGCI_LINT]
- Rules config: [/.golangci.yml]
- Command: [golangci-lint run --fix src/ -c /tmp/lint/.golangci.yml]
--Error detail:
level=error msg="Running error: context loading failed: no go files to analyze: running `go mod tidy` may solve the problem"

error when we added GO_GOLANGCI_LINT_ARGUMENTS: ["src/..."]:

�[31m❌ Linted [GO] files with [golangci-lint]: Found 1 error(s) - (0.89s)�[0m
- Using [golangci-lint v1.62.0] https://megalinter.io/8.3.0/descriptors/go_golangci_lint
- MegaLinter key: [GO_GOLANGCI_LINT]
- Rules config: [/.golangci.yml]
- Command: [golangci-lint run --fix src/... -c /tmp/lint/.golangci.yml]
--Error detail:
level=error msg="[linters_context] typechecking error: pattern ./src/...: directory prefix src does not contain main module or its selected dependencies"

We're assuming it's because the go.mod and go.sum files are in ./src and having these files in a sub-directory isn't supported by golangci-lint:

• Directory prefix src does not contain main module or its selected dependencies golangci/golangci-lint#4189 (comment)
• Directory prefix src does not contain main module or its selected dependencies golangci/golangci-lint#4189 (comment)

EDIT:

FWIW, we also tried the env variable (GOLANG_LINT_DIR) and the suggested config file for .golangci-lint and got the same error.

[nvuillam]

Oops... you can ask on golangci-lint repo what is the good call to perform for your use case ? ( I'm not a go expert :/ )

Then once we'll have the good call i'll be able to help