chore(lint): address pre-existing lint debt surfaced by golangci-lint v2.12.1 bump

Start with the v2.12.1 CI output, .golangci.yml, and .github/workflows/ci.yml, then inspect the listed production and test files for goconst and modernize findings. Check existing seiv1alpha1 constants and the k8s.io/utils/ptr usage before changing helpers. Done means the full v2.12.1 run passes without only-new-issues, with no new //nolint directives or behavior changes.

Problem

PR #162 forced a bump of golangci-lint from v2.8.0 → v2.12.1 because the seictl v0.0.37 module dragged go.mod's go directive to 1.26.0 (seictl declares go 1.26.0 as a minimum), and v2.8.0 was built with go1.25 and refuses to lint a 1.26 module.

The newer linter surfaces ~50 pre-existing issues spanning the codebase. None of them are introduced by #162's diff — they are pre-existing tech debt newly visible.

To unblock #162, the workflow runs with only-new-issues: true so the diff itself is gated but the debt isn't surfaced as a blocker on every PR. This issue tracks paying that debt down.

Surface

Counts from the v2.12.1 run on commit 3a80a53:

• 34 × goconst — repeated string literals flagged for extraction. Two buckets:

  • Generic K8s field names: "name", "namespace", "port", "action", "targetLabel", "data", "start", "true". These appear 3-6 times each in CRD / PrometheusRule / Service / pod-spec construction. Extracting these to constants is worse — const namespaceField = "namespace" adds confusion, not clarity. Right fix: bump goconst's min-occurrences threshold to 5 (or higher) in .golangci.yml so it stops flagging field names that just happen to recur.
  • Domain identifiers: "rpc", "validator", "archive", "exporter", "replayer", "evm", "grpc", "seid", "sei.io/nodedeployment", "chain". These are legitimate constants. Some likely already exist as exported constants somewhere in the codebase (e.g., seiv1alpha1.RoleValidator?) — should be re-used rather than duplicated.

• 16 × modernize (newexpr) — strPtr(x) / boolPtr(x) / int32Ptr(x) / To(x) calls and helper-fn definitions. Mechanical fixes:

  • At call sites: strPtr("foo") → func() *string { v := "foo"; return &v }() is wordy; usually the right move is to replace the helper with ptr.To(...) from k8s.io/utils/ptr (or pointer.String(...) from k8s.io/utils/pointer). Some call sites with zero-value args (strPtr("")) genuinely simplify to new(string).
  • At helper definitions (internal/controller/node/plan_execution_test.go:89 defines strPtr, etc.): replace with ptr.To import.

• 1 × other — single residual flagged as (true) linter; likely revive's bool-literal-in-expr or similar. Easy.

Affected files (from CI log)

Production:

• internal/controller/nodedeployment/{internal_service,monitoring,networking,nodes,per_pod_services}.go
• internal/noderesource/noderesource.go
• internal/task/bootstrap_resources.go

Tests:

• internal/controller/node/{import_pvc,peers,plan_execution,reconciler,sidecar_probe_integration,plan_execution_integration}_test.go
• internal/controller/nodedeployment/{internal_service,plan}_test.go
• internal/planner/executor_test.go
• internal/task/observe_image_test.go

Impact

Low-severity debt. The code works. The lint failure was a CI artifact of the linter version bump, not a regression in behavior.

Worth addressing because:

• only-new-issues: true is a workaround that masks future debt accumulation in untouched files. A reader can introduce identical patterns to the existing-but-suppressed issues and the linter won't flag them as long as they don't appear in the PR diff.
• goconst and modernize are both legitimately useful when calibrated. Tuning them once produces ongoing value.

Proposed approach

1. .golangci.yml calibration — bump goconst.min-occurrences to 5 (silences generic-field-name noise). Keep the linter enabled for cases that genuinely warrant constants.
2. Extract real constants for the domain identifiers in monitoring.go, networking.go, nodedeployment/*.go. Search first — seiv1alpha1 may already export some of these.
3. modernize fixes — replace local strPtr/boolPtr/int32Ptr helpers with k8s.io/utils/ptr.To[T] (a generic that subsumes all three). Drop the helpers. Mechanical 1-line-per-site replacement.
4. Remove only-new-issues: true from .github/workflows/ci.yml once the run is clean.

Estimated time: 30-45 min focused work. Could be one PR or split if the goconst constant extractions need code review.

Acceptance criteria

• golangci-lint v2.12.1 run on main exits 0 without only-new-issues: true.
• .golangci.yml is the only place that suppresses linter rules; no in-source //nolint directives added.
• No behavior change — purely lint cleanup.

Out of scope

• Bumping golangci-lint past v2.12.1 (latest as of filing). Future bumps may surface new rules; address those when they happen.
• Migrating to a different linter framework or adding new linters.
• The follow-up #161 work (drop taskParamser) — different concern, separate workstream.

References

• #162 introduced the version bump that surfaced this debt
• internal/task/sidecar.go:22-37 — example of the _ taskParamser assertion block style; consider matching that for any other typed-interface assertions added during cleanup
• golangci-lint goconst settings: https://golangci-lint.run/usage/linters/#goconst
• k8s.io/utils/ptr for the modernize helper replacement: https://pkg.go.dev/k8s.io/utils/ptr

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