--- title: "Use a faster native linter without losing rules" description: "Move supported lint checks to a fast native implementation and preserve coverage for rules it does not support." url: https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/techniques/native-lint-tools canonicalUrl: https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/techniques/native-lint-tools --- # Use a faster native linter without losing rules Move supported lint checks to a fast native implementation and preserve coverage for rules it does not support. ## How to choose an approach Compare the examples by repository setup, prerequisites, and risks before adopting one. Each company implemented this in its own environment; measure each change against your own baseline. - **[Linear](https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/linear#oxlint)**: Use it when A qualifying ESLint step remains on the slowest path after addressing type-aware overhead. Check before adopting: Retain ESLint for unsupported plugins and rules; benchmark equivalent file and rule coverage. - **[Spotify](https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/spotify#ruff-lint)**: Use it when A lint or format step runs several Python tools that ruff replaces. Check before adopting: The first run rewrites files to the new rules and formatting, so land those automated fixes in commits separate from the configuration change. ## Apply this technique ````text Evaluate and apply this CI technique to my repository: Use a faster native linter without losing rules. Move supported lint checks to a fast native implementation and preserve coverage for rules it does not support. Read the technique and its source-backed company examples: https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/techniques/native-lint-tools.md Inspect this repository’s CI workflows, build and test commands, dependencies, and recent run timings. Identify where this technique applies and explain the expected benefit using this repository’s evidence. Measure a baseline from recent comparable runs: elapsed time, queue time, runner minutes and failures where available. If data is unavailable, say what cannot be measured. Compare relevant company approaches, checking prerequisites, platform differences and tradeoffs. Rank applicable options by evidence, fit and measurable opportunity; do not present company results as predictions for this repo. Recommend the smallest safe change, show what checks and fallback paths remain, and ASK ME WHICH CHANGE TO APPROVE BEFORE EDITING ANY FILES. Only after approval, work on a new feature branch, make one reversible change, and open a reviewable pull request. Never merge or push to a default or protected branch. Keep required checks, test coverage, deployment and release behavior intact. Validate the change and compare equivalent runs where possible; report limitations and what should be monitored after merge. ```` ## How companies used this technique Read what each company changed and follow the original sources. ### Linear: Run native lint without losing unsupported rules After removing its type-information dependency, Linear moved lint work to Oxlint. Syntax-only rules are straightforward to port, and Oxlint reduced the CI runner-minutes spent on linting. Evidence: Documented technique Use it when: A qualifying ESLint step remains on the slowest path after addressing type-aware overhead. Before applying it: Retain ESLint for unsupported plugins and rules; benchmark equivalent file and rule coverage. [Read more in the Linear playbook](https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/linear#oxlint) [Primary source](https://linear.app/now/ci-bottleneck-reworked#lint-without-the-type-checker) ### Spotify: Lint with one fast native tool This is a community contribution to Spotify's luigi project. Luigi's lint ran flake8 and isort, two separately configured tools. The change adds a ruff configuration to pyproject.toml, replaces the flake8 tox environment with a lint environment, points the GitHub Actions matrix at it, and applies ruff's fixes and formatting across the codebase. Evidence: Source PR/commit evidence Use it when: A lint or format step runs several Python tools that ruff replaces. Before applying it: The first run rewrites files to the new rules and formatting, so land those automated fixes in commits separate from the configuration change. [Read more in the Spotify playbook](https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/spotify#ruff-lint) [Primary source](https://github.com/spotify/luigi/pull/3395) ## CI optimization is continuous work. Apply this technique yourself, or use StarSling Runners for faster GitHub Actions and optional agent-driven optimization PRs, which teams on eligible paid plans can turn on. [Get self-improving CI](https://starsling.dev/products/runners) ## Related techniques ### [Accelerate required type checking with a native compiler](https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/techniques/native-type-checking) Linear switched its type check to tsgo, the native TypeScript compiler. 1 implementation · 1 company (Linear) ### [Keep the lint rule, remove its type-graph dependency](https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/techniques/lint-without-types) Linear rewrote its type-aware custom lint rules to use static analysis over the syntax tree. 1 implementation · 1 company (Linear) ## Company Playbooks ### [Anthropic](https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/anthropic) Run only affected tests ### [DoorDash](https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/doordash) Run build and test in parallel, sharded across CI agents ### [Linear](https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/linear) Benchmark the same job on faster hardware ### [Mastra](https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/mastra) StarSling runners for the slowest test workflow ### [OpenAI](https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/openai) Rank CI fixes by the minutes they save ### [Ramp](https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/ramp) Move a CPU-bound test suite to a faster CPU ### [Shopify](https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/shopify) Let an agent iterate against one CI metric ### [Spotify](https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/spotify) Build arm64 on native arm64 runners ### [Stripe](https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/stripe) Run only the tests a change can reach ### [Uber](https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/uber) Build the merge-queue speculations most likely to be needed