February 26, 2026
Lint Wars: The Go Awakens
Show HN: Rev-dep – 20x faster knip.dev alternative build in Go
Lightning-fast code cop drops; AI fans cheer, lint loyalists groan
TLDR: Rev-dep is a new Go-based tool that scans big codebases super fast to catch dead or risky code, pitching itself as a quicker alternative to knip.dev. The crowd is split: fans want strict boundaries and speed, while skeptics say this should be a linter’s job—except ESLint removed key plugin support.
Show HN drops a speed-demon: Rev-dep, a Go-built “code cop” that scans giant JavaScript/TypeScript projects in a blink to spot dead files, messy imports, and tangled code maps. The headline brag? Auditing half a million lines in around 500ms. Think one tool to rule the mess—and your CI robot (the code-checker) will love it. But the real fireworks are in the comments.
One camp is already popping confetti. User e1g calls strict fences between parts of the code “surprisingly helpful for AIs,” flexing that their own homegrown checker runs under a second and is totally worth it as a shield against “The Slop.” Meanwhile, the practical crowd fires back: silverwind grumbles that this should’ve been solved by linters—those rule-enforcing tools—except ESLint “killed off the APIs” for popular rules, making a separate tool feel like swapping one headache for another. Some folks are just excited to try it, with esafak chiming in, “I’m eager to try it,” while others wonder if this Go-powered rocket really saves more time than it adds.
Bonus drama: the eternal speed meme versus reality check. Fans love the “Go beats Node” angle and dream of CI times dropping faster than coffee brews. Skeptics whisper: if knip.dev already exists, do we need another badge-wearing deputy—or just better lint rules?
Key Points
- •Rev-dep is a Go-implemented static analysis toolkit for JavaScript/TypeScript dependency governance.
- •It consolidates multiple dependency hygiene checks into a single parallelized pass and can fail CI on violations.
- •Claims 10x–200x faster execution than alternatives, auditing ~500k+ LOC in about 500ms.
- •Provides first-class monorepo support (pnpm, yarn, npm) and resolves package.json exports/imports and TypeScript aliases.
- •Includes a CLI for exploratory analysis (entry points, dependency paths, circular chains, node modules, LOC).