Relative paths handling is inconsistent between configuration options, hence unable to run golangci-lint from a subdirectory

[misha-ridge]

Welcome

• Yes, I'm using a binary release within 2 latest major releases. Only such installations are supported.
• Yes, I've searched similar issues on GitHub and didn't find any.
• Yes, I've included all information below (version, config, etc.).
• Yes, I've tried with the standalone linter if available (e.g., gocritic, go vet, etc.). (https://golangci-lint.run/usage/linters/)

Description of the problem

There are several places in golangci-lint where paths are specified, including:

• run.skip-dirs paths
• issues.exclude-rules.*.path
• linters-settings.gocritic.ruleguard.rules
• linters-settings.depguard.additional-guards.*.ignore-file-rules
• custom.*.path

The handling of these paths is inconsistent, leading to various issues when golangci-lint run is run from the directory other than the one containing the .golangci-lint.yml:

• run.skip-dirs, issues.exclude-rules.*.path are matched textually, so if golangci-lint run is called from a subdirectory, these matches are silently skipped
• linters-settings.gocritic.ruleguard.rules accepts {configDir} to make it look up proper ruleguard config file. However this directive does not seem to be accepted in any other places of the configuration file.
• linters-settings.depguard.additional-guards.*.ignore-file-rules appear to match full file paths.
• custom.*.path seem to always be relative to the configuration file, so at least this configuration works.

As it stands, the only way to run golangci-lint run from a subdirectory is to avoid any paths in configuration file, except ruleguard and custom linters.

It would be very useful to make all paths in configuration file behave the same. Treating them as relative to the location of the configuration file appears to be the most reasonable option.

There is already one issue for a specific case of path excludes: #1178, however this issue is more general.

Version of golangci-lint

golangci-lint has version v1.51.0 built from (unknown, mod sum: "h1:M1bpDymgdaPKNzPwQdebCGki/nzvVkr2f/eUfk9C9oU=") on (unknown)

Configuration file

run:
  skip-dirs:
   - some/path # matched textually, won't be matched if run as `cd some && golangci-lint run`

issues:
  exclude-rules:
      - path: some/other/path # matched textually, won't be matched if run as `cd some && golangci-lint run`
        linters:
          - errcheck

linters-settings:
  gocritic:
    settings:
      ruleguard:
        rules: "${configDir}/ruleguard.go" # this works due to ${configDir}
  depguard:
    additional-guards:
      - list-type: denylist
        ignore-file-rules:
          # There is no way to anchor the match to the root of the repository!
          - "**/some/third/path/*.go" # this seems to match full paths, unlike everything else
  custom:
    mycustomlinter:
      path: ./customlinter.so # this seems to be relative to the configuration file

[ldez]

Hello,

we cannot change how the linters manage paths in their configuration: in the majority of cases, we just delegate the configuration to linters. Golangci-lint is a wrapper.

[misha-ridge]

run.skip-dirs and issues.exclude-rules.*.path are not coming from linters, they are invented by golangci-lint. These two options are the most problematic and don't have any workarounds.

• linters-settings.gocritic.ruleguard.rules is from gocritic, but it works, though clunky.
• linters-settings.depguard.additional-guards.*.ignore-file-rules is from depguard, but it works though very clunky.
• custom.*.path works.