golangci/golangci-lint · error

failed to compute go.sum: %w

Error message

failed to compute go.sum: %w

What it means

After reading go.mod, computeGoModSalt computes a dirhash.Hash1 over its contents. If dirhash.Hash1 itself errors (unexpected here since it hashes an in-memory single file), the failure is wrapped with this message, again aborting hash-salt computation.

Source

Thrown at pkg/commands/run.go:721

func computeGoModSalt() (string, error) {
	values, err := goenv.Get(context.Background(), goenv.GOMOD)
	if err != nil {
		return "", fmt.Errorf("failed to get goenv: %w", err)
	}

	goModPath := filepath.Clean(values[goenv.GOMOD])

	data, err := os.ReadFile(goModPath)
	if err != nil {
		return "", fmt.Errorf("failed to read go.mod: %w", err)
	}

	// NOTE: the variable `goModPath` is not used here to ensure getting the same hash, independently of the location, for the same content.
	sum, err := dirhash.Hash1([]string{"go.mod"}, func(string) (io.ReadCloser, error) {
		return io.NopCloser(bytes.NewReader(data)), nil
	})
	if err != nil {
		return "", fmt.Errorf("failed to compute go.sum: %w", err)
	}

	return sum, nil
}

View on GitHub (pinned to ed7a235d2d)

Solutions

1. Inspect the wrapped cause in the error message for the real failure
2. Update to a recent golangci-lint version to rule out a stdlib/dirhash regression
3. If persistent, clear the lint cache (`golangci-lint cache clean`) and retry

if err := runLint(); err != nil {
	if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "failed to compute go.sum") {
		// inspect wrapped cause; clear cache and retry once
		runCacheClean()
		err = runLint()
	}
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}
}

When it happens

Trigger: dirhash.Hash1 failing during cache salt initialization; in practice nearly unreachable because the Open function returns io.NopCloser over an in-memory reader that cannot fail.

Common situations: Theoretically surfaced in exotic environments where the stdlib dirhash implementation returns an error; developers seeing it should check the wrapped cause.

Related errors

• failed to calculate binary salt: %w
• failed to read go.mod: %w
• can't load config: %w
• can't get enabled linters: %w
• failed to build packages cache: %w

AI-assisted analysis of golangci/golangci-lint@ed7a235d2d (2026-09-02). Data as JSON: /api/errors/c8188d34044aad0c. Report an issue: GitHub.