Semantic linter

Historically, linters have needed lots of software to parse and analyse your code. With Neo, it is possible to create new linting rules with just a sentence. We call this “semantic linting”.

For example, in Python you could write a rule “N013 dataclass is forbidden, only use pydantic BaseModel”. See Sagittal’s internal Python semantic linting rules for more examples.

This is useful for:

  • Adding linting rules your language’s linters don’t yet support

  • Adding rules that are specific to your team and codebase

We’ve found giving the rules a number, and making them specific and deterministic, is most successful.

⚠️ Neo will also use semantic linter rules while writing code.

Often teams have a separate document with company code style guidelines in which isn’t suitable for semantic linting. Set that in Context documents as well.

To set this up, create a “Semantic linter rules” document in your document manager tool with a table containing the first couple of rules you can think of in it.

💡 It is best not to worry too much about what the rules are to start with. Instead, get set up and incrementally add more rules as you come across them in the course of work.

Then give that URL to your Neo administrator, and ask them to set it as Semantic linter rules.