tsgolint v7 Stable Release Brings Go-Powered Type-Aware Linting to Oxlint

tsgolint v7 Stable Release

tsgolint, the type-aware linting engine used by Oxlint, has released its stable v7 version. This update brings native Go performance to TypeScript lint rules that previously ran through ESLint. The engine focuses on rules requiring TypeScript semantic analysis, such as checking if a promise is awaited.

Technical Implementation and Coverage

Instead of reimplementing a type checker, tsgolint builds real TypeScript programs using typescript-go, the official Go port of the TypeScript 7 compiler. Oxlint, written in Rust, handles file discovery, configuration, and syntactic rules, then delegates type-aware tasks to the Go binary. The v7 release tracks TypeScript v7.0.2 and implements 59 out of 61 type-aware rules from typescript-eslint.

Performance and Usage

Benchmarks indicate that the stable tsgolint build is 12 to 18 times faster than ESLint with typescript-eslint across various large projects like microsoft/vscode and vuejs/core on an Apple M4 Pro. Users can enable type-aware linting with two commands and can also report compiler errors alongside lint diagnostics. The release includes per-rule timings for debugging performance bottlenecks.

Industry Context and Alternatives

The approach of aligning with typescript-go is seen as a long-term advantage, inheriting future optimizations from the TypeScript team while maintaining rule compatibility with typescript-eslint. This strategy is being discussed by other tools like Biome, which currently synthesizes its own types and has shown gaps in rule coverage compared to typescript-eslint. The original tsgolint prototype from the typescript-eslint team is not under active development.

Migration for ESLint Users

ESLint users can migrate their existing configurations using a provided command-line tool and a migration guide. This allows for a transition to Oxlint's type-aware linting while preserving established linting rules.