[refactor] Consolidate duplicated linter AST helpers into internal/astutil

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🔧 Semantic Function Clustering Analysis

Analysis of repository: github/gh-aw — non-test .go files under pkg/

Executive Summary

I built a cross-file index of every top-level function/method declaration across 1,009 non-test .go files and clustered them by name and signature to surface duplicates and misplaced functions.

Headline: the codebase is already well-organized. The large packages follow a clean one-feature-per-file convention (pkg/cli, 339 files, has zero within-package free-function name collisions; pkg/workflow, 429 files, has none either once build variants are excluded). Nearly every apparent "duplicate" is a legitimate pattern, not a defect:

• _wasm.go build-tag variants — e.g. RunGH, ExecGH, findGitRoot, validateDockerImage each appear twice in pkg/workflow only because there is a real impl + a //go:build wasm stub. Correct Go idiom.
• Intentional delegation shims — SanitizeName, FindClosestMatches, compileSchema appear in pkg/workflow/pkg/parser as thin wrappers that already delegate to a single source of truth (pkg/stringutil, parser.CompileSchema). Consolidation has already happened.
• Standard Go patterns — run (42×, cobra commands), init (5×), New (3×).

Exactly one genuine, high-confidence consolidation opportunity survived verification, plus a few minor naming-collision notes.

Priority 1 — Duplicated AST helpers across linter analyzers (high confidence)

The pkg/linters/* analyzer packages copy-paste several small AST/type helpers instead of sharing them. This matters because the shared home already exists — pkg/linters/internal/astutil — and is already imported by 41 of 42 analyzer packages. These helpers are simply stragglers that were never migrated.

Verified duplicates (bodies compared, not just names):

Helper	Copies	Locations	Similarity
enclosingFuncType(node ast.Node) *ast.FuncType	3	execcommandwithoutcontext, httpnoctx, timesleepnocontext	byte-identical
contextContextType(pass *analysis.Pass) types.Type	3	execcommandwithoutcontext, timesleepnocontext, httpnoctx	identical logic (httpnoctx uses early-continue)
contextParamName(pass, *ast.FuncType) (string, bool)	3	execcommandwithoutcontext, timesleepnocontext, ctxbackground	identical (ctxbackground calls a local contextType)
calledOSFunc(pass, *ast.CallExpr) (*types.Func, bool)	2	osgetenvlibrary, ossetenvlibrary	byte-identical
flipOp(op token.Token) token.Token	2	lenstringzero, stringsindexcontains	byte-identical

Representative diff — enclosingFuncType is copied verbatim

// pkg/linters/execcommandwithoutcontext/execcommandwithoutcontext.go:141
// pkg/linters/httpnoctx/httpnoctx.go:164
// pkg/linters/timesleepnocontext/timesleepnocontext.go:145
func enclosingFuncType(node ast.Node) *ast.FuncType {
	switch fn := node.(type) {
	case *ast.FuncDecl:
		return fn.Type
	case *ast.FuncLit:
		return fn.Type
	default:
		return nil
	}
}

Recommendation: promote these five helpers into pkg/linters/internal/astutil (which currently exports IsLocalObject, IsFmtErrorf, Inspector, NodeText, etc.) and delete the per-package copies. contextContextType/contextParamName should be reconciled onto one spelling (ctxbackground uses contextType; the others use contextContextType).

Impact: removes ~5 copy-paste clusters (~10 redundant definitions), single source of truth for context/AST detection, and consistency with the pattern already used by 41 analyzers. Effort: ~1–2 hours; mechanical, covered by existing linter tests.

Priority 2 — Same-name / different-semantics collisions (minor, documentation)

These are not duplicates — same name, different signature and behavior across packages — but they invite confusion when reading code:

Name	pkg/parser	pkg/workflow / pkg/cli
extractToolsFromFrontmatter	returns (string, error)	returns map[string]any
resolveImportInputPath	returns (string, bool)	returns (any, bool)
hasCopilotRequestsWritePermission	—	cli takes map[string]any; workflow takes *WorkflowData (same intent, two layers)

Recommendation: rename to disambiguate by return contract (e.g. extractToolsString vs extractToolsMap), or add doc comments cross-referencing the sibling. Low priority — no functional issue. The hasCopilotRequestsWritePermission pair is worth checking for shared permission logic that could live in one place.

What was checked and found clean

• Outlier functions in the wrong file: none material. File names in pkg/cli/pkg/workflow map cleanly to purpose (git_helpers.go, docker_validation.go, schema_utils.go, permissions_operations.go, ...).
• Scattered utility functions: already centralized — pkg/stringutil, pkg/fileutil, pkg/sliceutil, pkg/setutil, pkg/jsonutil, pkg/timeutil, etc. exist and are used via delegation shims.
• Cross-package free-function duplicates: all resolved to build variants or intentional shims.

Implementation checklist

• Move enclosingFuncType, contextContextType, contextParamName, calledOSFunc, flipOp into pkg/linters/internal/astutil
• Reconcile contextType vs contextContextType naming in ctxbackground
• Delete the per-analyzer copies and update call sites
• Run linter analyzer tests to confirm no behavior change
• (Optional) Disambiguate the Priority-2 name collisions

Analysis metadata

• Non-test .go files analyzed: 1,009 (pkg/, excluding *_test.go and testdata/)
• Detection method: cross-file function/method name+signature index; duplicate bodies verified by direct comparison; build-tag (_wasm.go) and delegation-shim false positives filtered out
• Confirmed consolidation clusters: 5 (all in pkg/linters/*)
• Naming-collision notes: 3
• Analysis date: 2026-07-06

Note: analysis focused on the tractable, high-signal axis (function-name/signature clustering across the full tree). Byte-level near-duplicate detection inside function bodies was not exhaustively run across all 1,009 files; the findings above are the clusters that survived manual verification.

Generated by 🔧 Semantic Function Refactoring · 214.5 AIC · ⌖ 15.1 AIC · ⊞ 9.2K · ◷

• expires on Jul 7, 2026, 4:13 PM UTC-08:00

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