Golang x/tools/gopls: find write references only

gopls version

Today，we can find all the references of a variable.

But I want to find the write references only.

How to do that?

Will gopls add a support to this?

var a int

// write 1
a = 1

// read 1
_ = a

// read 2
b := a

// write 2
a = 2

I want to find references to list:

a = 1
a = 2

go env

go env
AR='ar'
CC='gcc'
CGO_CFLAGS='-O2 -g'
CGO_CPPFLAGS=''
CGO_CXXFLAGS='-O2 -g'
CGO_ENABLED='1'
CGO_FFLAGS='-O2 -g'
CGO_LDFLAGS='-O2 -g'
CXX='g++'
GCCGO='gccgo'
GO111MODULE=''
GOAMD64='v1'
GOARCH='amd64'
GOAUTH='netrc'
GOBIN='/home/jd/go/bin'
GOCACHE='/home/jd/.cache/go-build'
GOCACHEPROG=''
GODEBUG=''
GOENV='/home/jd/.config/go/env'
GOEXE=''
GOEXPERIMENT=''
GOFIPS140='off'
GOFLAGS=''
GOGCCFLAGS='-fPIC -m64 -pthread -Wl,--no-gc-sections -fmessage-length=0 -ffile-prefix-map=/tmp/go-build4068807655=/tmp/go-build -gno-record-gcc-switches'
GOHOSTARCH='amd64'
GOHOSTOS='linux'
GOINSECURE=''
GOMOD=''
GOMODCACHE=''
GONOPROXY=''
GONOSUMDB=''
GOOS='linux'
GOPATH='/home/jd/go'
GOPRIVATE=''
GOPROXY='https://goproxy.io,https://goproxy.cn,direct'
GOROOT='/usr/local/go'
GOSUMDB='sum.golang.org'
GOTELEMETRY='local'
GOTELEMETRYDIR='/home/jd/.config/go/telemetry'
GOTMPDIR=''
GOTOOLCHAIN='auto'
GOTOOLDIR='/usr/local/go/pkg/tool/linux_amd64'
GOVCS=''
GOVERSION='go1.24.3'
GOWORK=''
PKG_CONFIG='pkg-config'

What did you do?

find write references of a variable.

What did you see happen?

all references will list.

What did you expect to see?

only write references.

Editor and settings

No response

Logs

No response

Comment From: findleyr

I want this feature so badly!

In fact, this is the largest reason why we filed https://github.com/microsoft/language-server-protocol/issues/1911. Unfortunately, it seems to be getting no traction.

We can't do this in LSP, which means it would have to be a custom command and every client would need to implement their own logic. Nevertheless, leaving this open as a wish list item.

Comment From: ANAS727189

I’d also find this feature very useful, and I’m interested in working on it.
Right now I’m analyzing how references are collected in gopls to understand the best way to proceed.

Before I dive deeper, would you prefer this to be prototyped as a gopls-specific command (since LSP doesn’t support write-only references yet), or should I first extend the existing references logic with write/read classification?

My thought is to include only write references (and references that are both read + write, e.g. a++), while excluding pure read references.