Support Remote Cache for golangci-lint

[ryancurrah]

Welcome

• Yes, I've searched similar issues on GitHub and didn't find any.
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Your feature request related to a problem? Please describe

Yes, this feature request is related to the problem of long linting times, especially in large codebases or CI environments where there are multiple runners/agents.

Currently, golangci-lint lacks a mechanism to cache results remotely, which could help in reducing the overall time taken for linting when running it repeatedly over the same or similar code. This lack of caching increases build times and resource usage, especially when dealing with distributed and large build environments.

Describe the solution you'd like

I propose introducing a feature in golangci-lint to support remote caching by abstracting the cache mechanism. Similar to how Go has implemented the GOCACHEPROG environment variable, which allows a custom cache implementation via a child process that communicates using JSON over stdin/stdout, golangci-lint could introduce a GOLANGCICACHEPROG environment variable. This would allow users to specify a binary responsible for handling cache operations, thereby enabling remote caching similar to https://go-review.googlesource.com/c/go/+/486715.

Describe alternatives you've considered

Persisting cache on individual agents. In our environment, multiple agents are used, and they may not always have an up-to-date cache, leading to inconsistencies and longer build times.

Additional context

Willing to implement this myself if it is deemed an acceptable proposal. Remote caching has proven for us to reduce build times in Go projects. By using a similar approach in golangci-lint, users could experience similar reductions in linting times, especially in CI/CD environments or large projects when linting a lot of code. The ability to cache results remotely would lead to more efficient use of resources and faster feedback loops during builds.

Supporter

• I am a sponsor through GitHub or OpenCollective