golangci/golangci-lint · error

unknown locale: %q

Error message

unknown locale: %q

What it means

The misspell linter only supports locale configuration for US or UK/GB English dictionaries. createMisspellReplacer explicitly rejects NZ, AU, CA (and any other string) as an unsupported locale, returning this error from the linter constructor New, so golangci-lint fails to initialize misspell.

Source

Thrown at pkg/golinters/misspell/misspell.go:58

		}).
		WithLoadMode(goanalysis.LoadModeSyntax)
}

func createMisspellReplacer(settings *config.MisspellSettings) (*misspell.Replacer, error) {
	replacer := &misspell.Replacer{
		Replacements: misspell.DictMain,
	}

	// Figure out regional variations
	switch strings.ToUpper(settings.Locale) {
	case "":
		// nothing
	case "US":
		replacer.AddRuleList(misspell.DictAmerican)
	case "UK", "GB":
		replacer.AddRuleList(misspell.DictBritish)
	case "NZ", "AU", "CA":
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("unknown locale: %q", settings.Locale)
	}

	err := appendExtraWords(replacer, settings.ExtraWords)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("process extra words: %w", err)
	}

	if len(settings.IgnoreRules) != 0 {
		replacer.RemoveRule(settings.IgnoreRules)
	}

	// It can panic.
	replacer.Compile()

	return replacer, nil
}

func runMisspellOnFile(pass *analysis.Pass, file *ast.File, replacer *misspell.Replacer, mode string) error {

View on GitHub (pinned to ed7a235d2d)

Solutions

1. Change locale to "US" for American spelling or "UK"/"GB" for British spelling in .golangci.yml.
2. Remove the locale setting entirely to use the default (both dictionaries considered).
3. Handle regional differences via misspell's extra-words config instead of an unsupported locale.
4. Run `golangci-lint config verify` or docs check to catch unsupported values before running.

Example fix

# before
linters-settings:
  misspell:
    locale: AU
# after
linters-settings:
  misspell:
    locale: UK

func validLocale(l string) bool {
    switch l {
    case "", "US", "UK", "GB":
        return true
    }
    return false
}
if !validLocale(cfg.Misspell.Locale) { return fmt.Errorf("unsupported locale %q", cfg.Misspell.Locale) }

When it happens

Trigger: Setting linters-settings.misspell.locale to "NZ", "AU", "CA", or any value not in {"US", "UK", "GB", ""} in .golangci.yml.

Common situations: Developers outside US/UK assuming their country code is a valid locale (AU/NZ/CA are listed only to give a clear error); typos like "us-EN" or "en_US"; config copied from tools that do support those locales.

Related errors

• process extra words: %w
• can't get file %s contents: %w
• typo (%q) and correction (%q) fields should not be empty
• the word %q in the 'typo' field should only contain letters
• the word %q in the 'correction' field should only contain le

AI-assisted analysis of golangci/golangci-lint@ed7a235d2d (2026-09-02). Data as JSON: /api/errors/dea2c8f9cae8561e. Report an issue: GitHub.