Error on add a custom plugin in golangci-lint

[hobbitx]

Good evening,

I'm trying to create a custom linter for my application.

But I can't add them to golangci-lint.

I build my linter using command:
CGO_ENABLED=1 go build -buildmode=plugin plugin/main.go

added in .golangci.yml

  custom:
    example:
      path: /Users/username/dev/go-lint/pkg/golinters/main.so
      description: The description of the linter
      original-url: github.com/REDACTED/go-lint

and build golangci-lint using:
CGO_ENABLED=1 make build

I also tried to compile just the example plugin, and it also shows the same error:

ERRO Unable to load custom analyzer example:/Users/username/dev/go-lint/pkg/golinters/main.so, plugin.Open("/Users/username/dev/go-lint/pkg/golinters/main"): plugin was built with a different version of package internal/goarch 

[ldez]

plugin was built with a different version of package internal/goarch

This means that you are not using the same Go and/or the dependencies to build golangci-lint and your plugin.

[hobbitx]

I understood the error, what I didn't understand was the reason, I'm only using the example plugin available here.

It should work, right? 😕

Is there any way to validate the version of the packages?

[bombsimon]

golangci-lint version will show you what version your current installation of golangci-lint was built with. If you're using 1.55.2 you should see go1.21.3.

› golangci-lint version
golangci-lint has version 1.55.2 built with go1.21.3 from e3c2265f on 2023-11-03T12:59:25Z

Are you using go1.21.3 when you build your plugin plugin/main.go?

[ldez]

@hobbitx, the plugins of golangci-lint are based on Go plugin.
The Go plugin has restrictions.

Runtime crashes are likely to occur unless all parts of the program (the application and all its plugins) are compiled using exactly the same version of the toolchain, the same build tags, and the same values of certain flags and environment variables.
https://pkg.go.dev/plugin#hdr-Warnings

All versions here need to be the same as in golangci-lint/mod.go if present
https://github.com/golangci/example-plugin-linter/blob/6fa025a9c82ac69e74411ce1b73aa26d3f43186b/go.mod#L3

Plugin dependencies defined in the go.mod file MUST have a matching version (or hash) as the same dependency in the golangci-lint binary if the dependency is used in both.
https://github.com/golangci/example-plugin-linter?tab=readme-ov-file#create-a-copy-of-golangci-lint-that-can-run-with-plugins

For a private linter (which acts as a plugin) to work properly, the plugin as well as the golangci-lint binary needs to be built for the same environment.
https://golangci-lint.run/contributing/new-linters/#how-to-add-a-private-linter-to-golangci-lint

All versions of libraries that overlap golangci-lint (including replaced libraries) MUST be set to the same version as golangci-lint. You can see the versions by running go version -m golangci-lint.
https://github.com/golangci/example-plugin-linter/tree/master?tab=readme-ov-file#to-create-your-own-plugin

The go.mod of example-plugin-linter are not up-to-date with golangci-lint because it depends on your version of golangci-lint, you should handle that by yourself.

To know the version of Go and the version of libraries of your version of golangci-lint:

# To get the Go version
golangci-lint version

# To get all the information
golangci-lint version --debug

# To get the version of a specific library
golangci-lint version --debug | grep "golang.org/x/tools"

[hobbitx]

Thanks, it worked!

For future reference, I had to download the version of golang used to build the plugin to use the same version of golanglint