Add rewrite support for errorprone.refasterrules
I’d like to propose integrating Google’s Error Prone and its Picnic extension (demonstrated in Automating Away Bugs with Error Prone | PlatformCon 2023) to enable automated bug fixes via rewrite rules. This would complement Checkstyle’s static analysis capabilities by addressing semantic bugs rather than stylistic issues.
Motivation
Error Prone’s refaster/rewrite rules can automatically:
- Fix common bug patterns (e.g., String.equals() misuse)
- Modernize code (e.g., JDK migration helpers)
- Enforce best practices (e.g., null-check improvements)
Real-world adoptions show tangible benefits: - https://github.com/checkstyle/checkstyle/pull/17545 - https://github.com/pmd/pmd/pull/5956 - https://github.com/opensearch-project/OpenSearch/pull/18791 - https://github.com/diffplug/spotless/pull/2576 - https://github.com/apache/kafka/pull/20219
This might be something to gain feedback on in boot, to start strings up, see the alignment in an ease, following the same direction and convention.
Thanks for considering.
Comment From: philwebb
Thanks for the suggestion. Errorprone is something we're planning to investigate at some point, but currently we don't have the bandwidth to take this on. It's something we might get to after 4.0.x has been released.