Add blankassign linter

[skosovsky]

Repository URL

https://github.com/skosovsky/blankassign

Analyzer Requirements

• The analyzer must be more than one month old.
• The usage of AI must be explicitly expressed inside the readme.
• It must use go/analysis.
• It must not be a duplicate or too close to an existing analyzer.
• It must have a Go version inside the go.mod <= 1.25.0.
• The dependencies must be minimal.
• It must be available as a plugin.

Analyzer Goal

Finds bugs

Analyzer Description

blankassign reports direct single assignments to the blank identifier that silence unused non-error values, such as _ = ctx, _ = result, or _ = compute().
It intentionally ignores idiomatic blank identifier uses, including _, ok :=, _, err :=, range indexes, blank imports, interface assertions, and error-typed RHS values delegated to errcheck.

Analyzer License

MIT

Analyzer License Checks

• The file must start with LICENSE (capitalized).
• The file(s) must contain the required information by the license, e.g.: author, year, etc.

Analyzer Details

• It must have tests.
• It must not contain init().
• It must not contain panic().
• It must not contain log.Fatal().
• It must not contain os.Exit().
• It must not modify the AST.
• The configuration must not rely on external files.

Note on init(): the core analyzer package (blankassignment) does not contain init(). The repository currently also includes a golangci/plugin.go adapter with an init() function because github.com/golangci/plugin-module-register/register uses that pattern for golangci-lint v2 module plugin registration. If maintainers require no init() anywhere in the repository, I can split or drop that adapter before preparing an upstream PR.

Repository Details

• It must have a semver tag, e.g.: v1.0.0, v0.1.0 (0.0.x are not valid).
• I understand that tags must never be deleted or recreated once published.
• It must have a readme.
• The repository must have a CI.
• The CI must run on PR.
• The CI must run on the default branch.

Repository Recommendations

• It should have linting.
• It should have a .gitignore (IDE files, binaries, OS files, etc. should not be committed).
• Use main as the default branch name.

Pull Request

• Yes, I will wait for the approval of a maintainer before creating a PR.

Additional context

Latest semver tag: v0.1.3.
Initial publication/tag: v0.1.0, dated 2026-06-17.
Default branch: main.
License: MIT.
Analyzer type: go/analysis.Analyzer.
Linter name: blankassign.
Configuration: ignore names for simple identifier RHS values; no external files.
Plugin support: golangci-lint v2 module plugin adapter is present.

The motivation is to catch a small but common cleanup failure mode: explicit assignments to _ added to silence unused values during iterative development, refactors, generated changes, or AI-assisted coding. These assignments compile cleanly but often hide incomplete code paths or temporary stubs that escaped review.

Relationship to existing linters:

• unused catches unused declarations, but _ = value is often used specifically to hide that signal.
• ineffassign and wastedassign focus on ineffective ordinary assignments, while _ = value is an explicit discard.
• dogsled catches too many blank identifiers in multi-value assignments, not a single silencing assignment like _ = ctx.
• errcheck owns ignored errors; blankassign intentionally ignores RHS values whose type implements error.

There was an earlier free-form discussion before the one-month analyzer-age gate was satisfied: #6641. This new discussion uses the official New Linter Proposals form after the age gate.

[ldez]

Fake usage of the discussion template...