go-analyzer-dev

What problem does it solve?

Developing, maintaining, and auditing Go analyzers (go/analysis) is complex and error-prone without a structured workflow. This Skill provides a clear guide, reference materials, and a repeatable process to design, implement, test, and review analyzers.

Core Features & Use Cases

• Analyzer Contract: define purpose, scope, non-goals, diagnostics, and rules for generated-file handling and nolint behavior.
• AST/Types Strategy: enumerate visited node kinds, required TypesInfo behavior, and guard nil/partial data; prefer narrow inspectors.
• Fix Safety Rules: ensure correctness from local context, preserve comments and formatting, minimize edits, and respect token boundaries.
• Scenario Matrix & Testing: maintain per-analyzer scenario matrices with test mappings, unit tests using analysistest and RunWithSuggestedFixes, and update golden files as needed.
• Integration & Performance: run analyzers together safely, avoid expensive traversals, and reuse computed maps.
• Risk & Unknowns: list policy decisions and residual risks for unsupported scenarios.
• Deliverables: maintain updated analyzer contracts, test coverage, integration tests, and evidence notes.

Quick Start

Initialize a new analyzer by defining contract, AST/Types strategy, fix rules, and tests, then run integration checks to validate behavior.