Lint Review

Lint Review helps automate a tedious part of code review - enforcing coding standards. By using the GitHub API Lint Review runs a repository's configured linters and updates pull requests with line comments where lint errors would be introduced.

Lint Review requires:

• Python 2.7 or Python 3.6+
• RabbitMQ (or any other Message broker that is compatible with Celery)
• A publically addressable hostname/IP that either GitHub or your github:enterprise can reach.
• A GitHub account with read/write access to the repositories you want linted. This account is used to post comments on pull reviews.
• Docker as all tools are executed in containers.

Lint Review runs as two processes. A web process handles accepting webhooks from github, and a celery process handles cloning repositories and running containers for lint tools.

Hosted Lint Reviews

If you don't want to go through the trouble of setting up your own installation of lint-review, stickler-ci.com provides a hosted version of lint-review featuring all the linters installed, and an easier to use YAML config file.

In the free plan, Stickler CI provides the following for open source projects:

• Hosted service
• Connection to public repositories
• Commenting on style errors
• Auto fixing for style errors
• Clean user interface
• Robust documentation
• Automatic upgrades for linting tools.

A paid plan of Stickler CI allows you to enable private repositories and leverage organization user accounts to do reviews instead of adding the stickler-ci account as a collaborator.

Installation

You install Lint Review by cloning the repository and installing dependecies, or by using docker. If you are not using docker, it is recommended that you use virtualenv to save shaving yaks down the road.

git clone git://github.com/markstory/lint-review.git
cd lint-review
virtualenv env
source env/bin/activate
pip install .

Make docker images for tools you want to use

In addition to installing the dependencies for lint-review you will also need to build the containers for each lint tool you want to use:

# Create a set of images for frequently used tools.
make images

Once the dependencies are installed you should configure the repositories you want to review.

Running lintreview services in Docker

To use docker, you'll need to install both docker, docker-compose and possibly docker toolbox depending on your operating system. Once you have the docker installed, you can boot up lint-review into docker using:

docker-compose up -d broker worker web

Edit docker-compose.yml and customise your configuration by setting keys under environment for the web and worker processes. For the most basic installation you'll need to set GITHUB_OAUTH_TOKEN, and LINTREVIEW_SERVER_NAME.

Lint Review Configuration

Lint review is configured through a settings file. Both the web app and celery process share the same configuration file, so configuration is easier to manage and share.

• Copy the settings.sample.py to settings.py

• Edit the required configuration options, or set the correct environment variables.

• Set the LINTREVIEW_SETTINGS environment variable to the path of your configuration files. In *nix system this can be done via:

  export LINTREVIEW_SETTINGS='/path/to/settings.py'
  

• You can skip setting LINTREVIEW_SETTINGS if you're running lintreview from a directory containing your settings.py file.

You can also have per install configuration files by defining the LINTRC_DEFAULTS config option in your settings file. This file should be a .lintrc config file. It will be merged with each projects .lintrc before running tools. This gives you an easy way to have global configuration for tools.

Setting up Repositories

Once you've configured the server processes, it is time to setup some repositories to be checked.

Installing GitHub hooks

Before Lint Review can check pull requests on a repository webhooks will need to be installed. You can install webhooks by running the built-in command line tool:

source env/bin/activate
lintreview register mark awesome-stuff

Or, if you're using Docker:

docker-compose run web lintreview register mark awesome-stuff

The above register webhooks for the given user & repository. You can use the --user and --password options to provide the repository admin credentials if the user lint-review runs as does not have admin access to the repository. You can also use the cli tool to remove webhooks:

source env/bin/activate
lintreview unregister mark awesome-stuff

Warning The current web server name will be registered with github. Make sure it is configured properly before registering hooks, or you'll need to remove any registered hooks and start over.

.lintrc files

Lint Review use hidden ini files to configure the tools used on each project. The .lintrc file defines the various linting tools and any arguments for each one. Lint tools must be tools Lint Review knows about. See lint tools for available tools. A sample .lintrc file would look like.

[files]
ignore = generated/*
    vendor/*

[tools]
linters = pep8, jshint

[tool_pep8]
ignore = W2,E401

[tool_jshint]
config = path/to/jshint.json

The [tools] section is required, and linters should be a list of linters your project uses. Each tool can also have a section prefixed with tool_ to define additional configuration options for each tool. The documentation for each tool outlines which options are supported.

The [files] section is optional and allows you to define ignore patterns. These patterns are used to find and exclude files when doing a review. Ignore patterns use glob expressions to find files. The patterns start at the reviewed repository root. If you need to ignore mulitple patterns separate them with new lines.

Running Lint Review

After setting up configuration you'll need to start up both processes:

source env/bin/activate
gunicorn -c settings.py lintreview.web:app
celery -A lintreview.tasks worker

Now when ever a pull request is opened or updated for a registered repository new jobs will be spun up and lint will be checked and commented on.

Lint tools

Python:

Flake8

Uses the flake8 module to check code.

Options

• ignore Set which pep8 error codes you wish to ignore.
• exclude Exclude files matching these comma separated patterns (default: .svn, CVS, .bzr, .hg, .git)
• filename When parsing directories, only check filenames matching these comma separated patterns (default: *.py)
• select Select errors and warnings (e.g. E,W6)
• max-line-length Set maximum allowed line length (default: 79)
• format Set the error format [default|pylint|]
• max-complexity McCabe complexity threshold
• snippet Interacts with flake8-snippets allowing you to trigger errors on specific snippets you want to disallow.

These options are passed into flake8 as cli options.

pep8

Uses the pep8 module to check code.

Options

• ignore Set which pep8 error codes you wish to ignore.
• exclude Exclude files or directories which match these comma separated patterns (default: .svn, CVS, .bzr, .hg, .git)
• filename When parsing directories, only check filenames matching these comma separated patterns (default: *.py)
• select Select errors and warnings (e.g. E,W6)
• max-line-length Set maximum allowed line length (default: 79)

py3k

Uses pylint to check for Python 3 compatibility issues.

Options

• ignore A comma separated list of error codes you wish to ignore.
• ignore-patterns A comma separated list of regular expressions that match files you want to ignore.

pytype

Uses pytype to check python code using type annotations.

Options

• config Path to a config file for pytype.
• fixer Enable automatic merging of inferred pyi files.

PHP

PHPCS

Uses the phpcs PEAR library to do style checks on PHP, Javascript and or CSS files.

Options

• standard The coding standard to use. By default the PSR2 standard is used. You can use any of the built-in standards or provide your own inside your project directory.
• extensions The extensions to check. By default only .php files will be checked.
• ignore A glob path of files to ignore.
• exclude A comma separated list of sniffs to not apply.
• tab_width The number of spaces to convert tabs into, this is useful for projects using tabs for indentation.

PHPMD

Uses the phpmd tool to check code for messy or hard to maintain code.

Options

• ruleset The ruleset names or file to use for phpmd. Defaults to cleancode,codesize,unusedcode

Javascript:

JSHint

Uses the jshint npm module to check javascript files. Before you can use this linter you'll need to install nodejs and the jshint npm package:

cd path/to/lintreview
npm install jshint

Options

• config Provide a path to the json config file for jshint.

ESLint

Uses the eslint npm module to check javascript files. Before you can use this linter you'll need to install the eslint npm package:

cd path/to/lintreview
npm install eslint

Options

• config Provide a path to the json config file for eslint.

StandardJs

Uses the standard npm module to check javascript files. Before you can use this linter you'll need to install nodejs and the standard npm package:

Options

• None currently supported

JSON Lint

Uses the jsonlint script from demjson python module to check javascript object notation files.

Options

• None currently supported

TypeScript

Tslint

Uses the tslint tool to review TypeScript files. You need to include a tslint.json configuration file in your project or use the config option to provide a path to a config file.

Options

• config The config file you want tslint to use.
• project The tsc config file you want tslint to use.

CSS:

CSSLint

Uses the csslint npm module to check css files. Before you can use this linter you'll need to install nodejs and the csslint npm package:

cd path/to/lintreview
npm install

Both warnings and errors will be turned into code review comments. If you don't want code review comments for specific rules, you should ignore them.

Options

• ignore A comma separated list of rule ids to ignore.

SASS / SCSS

scss-lint

Uses the sass-lint npm module to check scss and sass files.

Options

• ignore A comma separated list of files to ignore.
• config Project relative path to the sass-lint config file you want applied.

Stylelint

Uses stylelint to check, scss, sass, less or css files.

Options

• config Provide a path to your stylelint configuration file. If none is provided then stylelint's default config file lookup behavior will be used, and falling back to the stylelint-config-recommended will be used.

Ruby:

RuboCop

Uses the rubocop gem to check ruby files. You'll need to install it to use it:

gem install rubocop

Options

• display_cop_names Set to true to pass display cop names in offense messages.

.rubocop.yml files will be respected, as described here.

Puppet:

puppet-lint

Uses the puppet-lint gem to check puppet manifests against the puppetlabs style guide.

You'll need to install it to use it:

gem install puppet-lint

Options

• config Provide a path to a puppet-lint config file.
• fixer_ignore A comma separated list of linter checks to ignore when running the fixer.

.puppet-lint.rc files will also be respected, to allow each project to disable checks. A list of checks can be found by running "puppet-lint --help"

Chef:

Foodcritic

Uses the Foodcritic gem to check Chef files. You'll need to install Foodcritic:

gem install foodcritic

Options

• path If your cookbooks aren't stored in the root, use this to set the path that foodcritic runs against. Example: path = cookbooks

Yet Another Markup Language:

yamllint

Uses the yamllint module to check yaml and yml files.

Options

• config Provide a path to the yaml config file for yamlhint.

Shell

Shellcheck

Uses shellcheck to lint shell scripts.

Options

• shell Select which shell to use. Options are: bash, sh, ksh or zsh. Default: sh
• exclude String of checks to ignore. Example: SC2154,SC2069

Ansible

Ansible-lint

Uses ansible-lint to lint Ansible plays.

Options

• ignore Set which ansible-lint error codes you wish to ignore.

Go lang

Golint

Uses go-lint to lint go code.

Options

• min_confidence Set the confidence level of a problem before it is reported.
• ignore A list of regular expressions, that allow you to ignore warnings.

Kotlin

Ktlint

Uses ktlint to lint kotlin code.

Options

• android Set to true to pass rule set in error messages.
• config Provide a path to the .editorconfig file for ktlint.
• experimental Set to true to add experimental rules.
• fixer Set to true to fix any deviations from the code style
• ruleset Provide "ruleset" a path to JAR containing one or more Rules gathered together in a RuleSet.

Lua

Luacheck

Uses luacheck to lint Lua code.

Options

• config Provide a path to the config file for luacheck.

Elixir

Credo

Uses credo to lint Elixir code. Runs mix credo list to get results by files.

Options

• checks Only include checks that match the given strings
• config-name Use the given config instead of "default"
• ignore-checks Ignore checks that match the given strings
• all Show all issues
• all-priorities Show all issues including low priority ones
• strict Show all issues and all priorities

Markdown

Remarklint

Uses remark-lint to lint markdown files. Will use the .remarkrc files in your project. The remark-preset-lint-recommended package is installed, other presets require customizing the nodejs docker image.

Options

• No options at this time.