nextflow-io / nextflow-io/nextflow

The linter could check whitespace use

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stale
Dominant language
Groovy
Stars
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Forks
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Avg merge
2d 11h
Merged PRs (30d)
61

Description

New feature

I would like nextflow lint to check whitespace usage and warn about:

  • use of tabulation (with the default settings), or use of spaces if the user added -tabs
  • trailing whitespace

Use case

I found a nf-core module that happened to mix tabulations and spaces and was surprised nextflow lint didn't complain

$ git grep '        ' modules/nf-core/minimap2/align/main.nf
modules/nf-core/minimap2/align/main.nf: }
$ nextflow_lint modules/nf-core/minimap2/align/main.nf -o json
{
    "date": "2026-02-12T15:33:07.368610659Z",
    "summary": {
        "errors": 0,
        "filesWithErrors": 0,
        "filesWithoutErrors": 1,
        "filesFormatted": 0
    },
    "errors": [
        
    ],
    "warnings": [
        
    ]
}

(you can't see it but my grep command had a proper tabulation in)

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by tracing the nextflow lint command and its existing warning and JSON-output handling. Implement checks for tabs under default settings, spaces when -tabs is enabled, and trailing whitespace; done means these cases produce warnings without changing the existing output format.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
groovy
Domain
cli, tooling
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
45/100

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