Troubleshooting¶
internal error: package "context" without types was imported¶
internal error: package "context" without types was imported from "github.com/example/terraform-provider-example/internal/service"
Cause. A golang.org/x/tools incompatibility with the Go 1.27 toolchain. It is not a bug in any check — the run crashes during package loading, before analysis begins.
Fix. Upgrade to tfsprout v0.1.1 or later, which bumps golang.org/x/tools to a release that understands the Go 1.27 export data format.
The Go version that matters is the one running tfsprout, not the one in your provider's go.mod. If your CI image was upgraded to Go 1.27 and lint started failing without a code change, this is why. See the CHANGELOG.
No output at all, exit code 0¶
tfsprout exits 0 and prints nothing. Three possible causes, in order of likelihood:
Your provider does not use the Terraform Plugin SDK. Providers built on terraform-plugin-framework produce no findings, because none of the types the checks match on are present. This is the most common cause and the most misleading, since it looks identical to a clean run. See Scope and SDK support.
You did not match any packages. tfsprout with no arguments analyzes the current directory only. Use ./... to recurse:
Your provider is genuinely clean. Verify by enabling a check you know you violate, or by running against a single file you have inspected.
-fix changed nothing¶
Expected. Only three checks produce suggested fixes, and two of them are extra checks unavailable in tfsprout. See Automated fixes.
flag provided but not defined: -XR002¶
You are running tfsprout, which contains standard checks only. Extra checks (any ID starting with X) require tfsproutx:
flag provided but not defined: -V002.something¶
The check is removed. Removed analyzers accept -V002 and -V002=false but register no per-check flags of their own. Drop the flag.
An ignore comment is not working¶
Work through these in order:
- Check the ID spelling.
//lintignore:S0013is silently inert — IDs are not validated. Compare against the check index. - Check the comment style. Only
//line comments are recognized./* lintignore:S013 */does nothing. - Check placement. The comment must be on the line immediately preceding the code, or trailing it on the same line, so that it attaches to the right AST node.
- Check for spaces in a list. In
//lintignore:S013, S016the space becomes part of the second key, so it matches no check. Write//lintignore:S013,S016with no spaces.
See Ignoring reports.
go vet reports a different set of findings¶
Running through go vet -vettool applies go vet's own package selection and build-tag handling, which can differ from running the binary directly. Most often this is build tags: acceptance test files behind a tag are invisible to whichever invocation does not set them.
With go vet, pass build tags through the go command, which understands them:
Running the binary directly, -tags is accepted but has no effect — it is a deprecated no-op inherited from the go/analysis driver. There is no way to set build tags on a direct invocation, so use go vet when you need them.
The other common cause is test files. The AT checks only ever fire in _test.go files, so if you passed -test=false, every acceptance test check goes quiet. See the CLI reference.
Analysis is slow or runs out of memory¶
Large providers — several thousand resources — can take minutes and multiple gigabytes, because every package is type-checked before analysis. Options:
- Analyze a subtree rather than the whole module:
tfsprout ./internal/service/ec2/... - Run fewer checks:
tfsprout -AT001 -S013 ./... - Split CI into parallel jobs by service directory.
There is no incremental cache; each run is from scratch.
Something else¶
Open an issue at github.com/jfrappier/tfsprout/issues. Include the output of tfsprout -V=full, your Go version (go version), and the exact command you ran.