Isolated Dylint library for enforcing
Rust argument comments in the exact /*param*/ shape.
Prefer self-documenting APIs over comment-heavy call sites when possible. If a
call site would otherwise read like foo(false) or bar(None), consider an
enum, named helper, newtype, or another idiomatic Rust API shape first, and
use an argument comment only when a smaller compatibility-preserving change is
more appropriate.
It provides two lints:
argument_comment_mismatch(warnby default): validates that a present/*param*/comment matches the resolved callee parameter name.uncommented_anonymous_literal_argument(allowby default): flags anonymous literal-like arguments such asNone,true,false, and numeric literals when they do not have a preceding/*param*/comment.
String and char literals are exempt because they are often already self-descriptive at the callsite.
Given:
fn create_openai_url(base_url: Option<String>, retry_count: usize) -> String {
let _ = (base_url, retry_count);
String::new()
}This is accepted:
create_openai_url(/*base_url*/ None, /*retry_count*/ 3);This is warned on by argument_comment_mismatch:
create_openai_url(/*api_base*/ None, 3);This is only warned on when uncommented_anonymous_literal_argument is enabled:
create_openai_url(None, 3);Install the required tooling once:
cargo install cargo-dylint dylint-link
rustup toolchain install nightly-2025-09-18 \
--component llvm-tools-preview \
--component rustc-dev \
--component rust-srcRun the lint crate tests:
cd tools/argument-comment-lint
cargo testGitHub releases also publish a DotSlash file named
argument-comment-lint for macOS arm64, Linux arm64, Linux x64, and Windows
x64. The published package contains a small runner executable, a bundled
cargo-dylint, and the prebuilt lint library.
The package is not a full Rust toolchain. Running the prebuilt path still
requires the pinned nightly toolchain to be installed via rustup:
rustup toolchain install nightly-2025-09-18 \
--component llvm-tools-preview \
--component rustc-dev \
--component rust-srcThe checked-in DotSlash file lives at tools/argument-comment-lint/argument-comment-lint.
run-prebuilt-linter.py resolves that file via dotslash and is the path used by
targeted package runs such as just argument-comment-lint -p codex-core.
Repo-wide runs now go through a native Bazel aspect that invokes a custom
rustc_driver and reuses Bazel-managed Rust dependency metadata instead of
spawning cargo dylint once per crate. The source-build path remains available
in run.py for people iterating on the lint crate itself.
The Unix archive layout is:
argument-comment-lint/
bin/
argument-comment-lint
cargo-dylint
lib/
libargument_comment_lint@nightly-2025-09-18-<target>.dylib|so
On Windows the same layout is published as a .zip, with .exe and .dll
filenames instead.
DotSlash resolves the package entrypoint to argument-comment-lint/bin/argument-comment-lint
(or .exe on Windows). That runner finds the sibling bundled cargo-dylint
binary and the single packaged Dylint library under lib/, normalizes the
host-qualified nightly filename to the plain nightly-2025-09-18 channel when
needed, and then invokes cargo-dylint dylint --lib-path <that-library> with
the repo's default DYLINT_RUSTFLAGS and CARGO_INCREMENTAL=0 settings.
The checked-in run-prebuilt-linter.py wrapper uses the fetched package
contents directly so the current checked-in alpha artifact works the same way.
It also makes sure the rustup shims stay ahead of any direct toolchain
cargo binary on PATH, and sets RUSTUP_HOME from rustup show home when
the environment does not already provide it. That extra RUSTUP_HOME export is
required for the current Windows Dylint driver path.
If you are changing the lint crate itself, use the source-build wrapper:
./tools/argument-comment-lint/run.py -p codex-coreRun the lint against codex-rs from the repo root:
just argument-comment-lint
bazel build --config=argument-comment-lint -- \
$(./tools/argument-comment-lint/list-bazel-targets.sh)
./tools/argument-comment-lint/run-prebuilt-linter.py -p codex-core
just argument-comment-lint -p codex-coreIf no package selection is provided, just argument-comment-lint now defaults
to the Bazel aspect path over //codex-rs/.... The Python wrappers remain the
package-scoped escape hatch and still default the underlying Cargo invocation
to --all-targets unless you explicitly narrow the target set, so targeted
wrapper runs cover test-only call sites by default. The Bazel entrypoints use
tools/argument-comment-lint/list-bazel-targets.sh to add the internal
manual *-unit-tests-bin Rust targets explicitly, so inline #[cfg(test)]
call sites are covered without pulling in unrelated manual release targets.
Repo runs also promote argument_comment_mismatch and
uncommented_anonymous_literal_argument to errors by default:
./tools/argument-comment-lint/run-prebuilt-linter.py -p codex-coreThe wrapper does that by setting DYLINT_RUSTFLAGS, and it leaves an explicit
existing setting alone. It also defaults CARGO_INCREMENTAL=0 unless you have
already set it, because the current nightly Dylint flow can otherwise hit a
rustc incremental compilation ICE locally. To override that behavior for an ad
hoc run:
DYLINT_RUSTFLAGS="-A argument-comment-mismatch -A uncommented-anonymous-literal-argument" \
CARGO_INCREMENTAL=1 \
./tools/argument-comment-lint/run.py -p codex-coreTo override an explicitly narrow target selection, or to be explicit in scripts:
./tools/argument-comment-lint/run-prebuilt-linter.py -p codex-core -- --all-targets