Description
The 2026-08-05 Repository Quality Improvement Report (focus: Error Message Actionability) found that pkg/linters/errormessage — the custom analyzer enforcing the repo's error-message style guide (.github/skills/error-messages/SKILL.md) — only runs against files passed via --changed-files, and silently no-ops otherwise. This means the ~1,129 pre-existing instances of the generic, unguarded fmt.Errorf("failed to X: %w", err) anti-pattern across pkg/ are invisible to tooling and never get remediated, only prevented from growing.
Expected Impact
Enables tracking remediation of existing error-message debt as a metric over time (non-blocking report initially), rather than only gating new diffs. Establishes a baseline for future cleanup PRs.
Suggested Agent
General-purpose engineering agent, following the go-linters skill conventions.
Estimated Effort
Medium (1-4 hours) — add a --full-repo flag or --changed-files=all sentinel to pkg/linters/errormessage/errormessage.go (functions run, parseChangedFiles, shouldCheckFile), wire a non-blocking make target, add a unit test.
Data Source
DeepReport Intelligence Briefing analysis, 2026-08-05, sourced from Repository Quality Improvement Report — Error Message Actionability & Consistency.
Generated by 🔬 Deep Report · agent · 160.4 AIC · ⌖ 36.9 AIC · ⊞ 11K · ◷
Description
The 2026-08-05 Repository Quality Improvement Report (focus: Error Message Actionability) found that
pkg/linters/errormessage— the custom analyzer enforcing the repo's error-message style guide (.github/skills/error-messages/SKILL.md) — only runs against files passed via--changed-files, and silently no-ops otherwise. This means the ~1,129 pre-existing instances of the generic, unguardedfmt.Errorf("failed to X: %w", err)anti-pattern acrosspkg/are invisible to tooling and never get remediated, only prevented from growing.Expected Impact
Enables tracking remediation of existing error-message debt as a metric over time (non-blocking report initially), rather than only gating new diffs. Establishes a baseline for future cleanup PRs.
Suggested Agent
General-purpose engineering agent, following the
go-lintersskill conventions.Estimated Effort
Medium (1-4 hours) — add a
--full-repoflag or--changed-files=allsentinel topkg/linters/errormessage/errormessage.go(functionsrun,parseChangedFiles,shouldCheckFile), wire a non-blockingmaketarget, add a unit test.Data Source
DeepReport Intelligence Briefing analysis, 2026-08-05, sourced from Repository Quality Improvement Report — Error Message Actionability & Consistency.