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You don't need that.

You only need to use path with the "Automatic way": https://golangci-lint.run/docs/plugins/module-plugins/#the-automatic-way

Or to follow the "manual way": https://golangci-lint.run/docs/plugins/module-plugins/#the-manual-way

Thanks for the review, @ldez!

You're right that a replace in the plugin module itself is fine. The issue is that golangci-lint custom builds a temporary repo whose go.mod does not inherit the plugin's replace, so it tries to fetch the analyzer from VCS.

For example.

1. .custom-gcl.yml points to ./myplugin by path option
2. ./myplugin/go.mod has replace example.com/myanalyzer => ../myanalyzer (unpublished)
3. Running golangci-lint custom fails downloading example.com/myanalyzer

I've thought the root cause is the temporary go.mod generated by custom lacks the plugin's replace. This PR copies the plugin's replace into that temporary go.mod, so local analyzer dependency can be resolved.

If there's an existing "as-is" automatic way that makes custom adopt the plugin's replace without this change, could you point me to it?

A plugin must contain the Analyzer so I don't understand what your plugin is.

During development, you don't need replace directive for your plugin; you only need to reference your plugin path inside the path field.

You are write. It could be solved with both import and path options:

plugins:
  - module: example.com/myanalyzer
    import: example.com/myanalyzer/myplugin
    path: .

When the repository looks like:

myanalyzer/
  .custom-gcl.yml
  go.mod -- does not depend on golangci-lint
  ...
  myplugin/
    go.mod -- depends on golangci-lint
    ...

Thanks for your advice!

A plugin should not depend on golangci-lint, but on the plugin-module-register

See the example: https://github.com/golangci/example-plugin-module-linter