Skills

Skill 23 of 54

PR To Go Linter

Generate a new pkg/linters analyzer from a merged or open PR pattern.

1 minute · 206 words · 6 sections

Install

$ npx skills add github/gh-aw --skill pr-to-go-linter

$ npx skills add github/gh-aw

The first command installs just this skill, by the name in its SKILL.md; the second installs the whole repository.

Use this skill when a user asks to create a new custom Go linter based on a code pattern fixed in a pull request.

Goal

Convert one concrete PR pattern into a new go/analysis linter under pkg/linters/<name>/ with tests and runner registration.

Inputs

Repository owner/name
Pull request number
Target linter name (kebab-case)

Workflow

Read PR metadata and changed files.
Read the PR diff and extract the repeated pattern that was fixed.
Define one precise diagnostic rule from that pattern.
Confirm no existing linter in pkg/linters/ already covers it.
Implement:
- pkg/linters/<name>/<name>.go with exported Analyzer
- pkg/linters/<name>/<name>_test.go using analysistest
- pkg/linters/<name>/testdata/src/<name>/<name>.go fixtures with // want
- cmd/linters/main.go registration in multichecker.Main(...)
Validate:
- go test ./pkg/linters/<name>/...
- go build ./cmd/linters
- make golint-custom

Rule quality checks

High signal, low false positives on this repository.
Diagnostic is specific and fixable.
Rule scope matches code in the PR (do not generalize beyond evidence).
Do not change unrelated linter packages.

For PR #33038 (Refactor pkg mutex sites to use deferred unlocks consistently), derive a linter idea that reports lock/unlock sections that manually unlock instead of deferring unlock immediately after lock when the function body matches the same cache/logger-style critical section pattern.

Output expectations

Minimal implementation-only diff in pkg/linters/<name>/ and cmd/linters/main.go.
Tests prove both flagged and non-flagged cases.
PR summary explains: source PR, extracted pattern, and why the rule is safe.

Colophon for this issue

Colophon

How this issue was made

Source

github.com/github/gh-aw, branch main, last pushed 24 September 2026.

Licence

MIT — the text of every skill is reproduced unmodified, frontmatter included, under the upstream licence.

Discovery

54 skills found by walking the repository tree for SKILL.md, not by matching a directory convention. 4 distinct layouts observed: .claude/skills/*/SKILL.md, .github/skills/*/SKILL.md, .squad/*/skill.md, SKILL.md (repo root).

Authorship

27 of 54 skills are installed into the repository rather than published from it. They are shelved in the closing “Credited skills” part and remain the work of their own authors. A skill counts as credited when its only copy lives under one agent’s dot directory; visible directories, per-agent mirror sets, and skills installable from this repository on skills.sh all count as published.

Issue colours

Resolved from a curated brand profile — hue 295°, chroma 0.190. Two accent tones are generated per issue and each is proven against its own ground before it ships: a single accent that passes AA on both light and dark paper is arithmetically impossible.

Heading repairs

1 repair applied to this skill so the document has one h1 and no skipped levels:

Removed “PR to Go Linter”, a leading h1 that duplicated the skill title.

Spec compliance

4 editorial notes across 3 of 54 skills. They are printed in the margin of each skill rather than as errors here.

Images

Images inside a skill come from the upstream repository. Where the author gave no alternative text we mark the image decorative rather than inventing a description — a plausible caption we made up is worse than none for the reader who depends on it.

Signal

Install counts come from skills.sh. They measure downloads, not quality, and an unranked repository is not an unread one.

Agent surfaces

The whole issue is available as one markdown document at /github/gh-aw.md, and each skill at its own .md URL.

Publication

Set by Skills Docs from the source repository. Body text is Literata at the reader’s chosen size and measure; code is Geist Mono. Nothing on this page was written by us except this paragraph.

Workflow

Read PR metadata and changed files.

Read the PR diff and extract the repeated pattern that was fixed.

Define one precise diagnostic rule from that pattern.

Confirm no existing linter in pkg/linters/ already covers it.

Implement:

pkg/linters/<name>/<name>.go with exported Analyzer
pkg/linters/<name>/<name>_test.go using analysistest
pkg/linters/<name>/testdata/src/<name>/<name>.go fixtures with // want
cmd/linters/main.go registration in multichecker.Main(...)

Validate:

go test ./pkg/linters/<name>/...
go build ./cmd/linters
make golint-custom

PR To Go Linter

Goal

Inputs

Workflow

Rule quality checks

Example pattern source

Output expectations

Colophon

PR To Go Linter

Goal

Inputs

Workflow

Rule quality checks

Example pattern source

Output expectations

Colophon