Add Rule Version Filtering Based on @SinceKtlint Annotations

[hugoncosta]

Enhancement: Add Rule Version Filtering Based on @SinceKtlint Annotations

Expected Behavior

Add a new configuration option to KtLint plugin that allows users to filter out rules that were introduced after a specified KtLint version. This would use the existing @SinceKtlint annotations present on all rules to determine which rules to include.

Proposed Configuration:

ktlint {
    version.set("1.5.0")
    maxRuleVersion.set("0.46.0") // Only include rules introduced up to version 0.46.0
}

Why do I want this?
Upgrading to higher versions of Kotlin (e.g. 2.1.0) requires a newer version of Ktlint (we're currently on 1.2.1). If I upgrade it, I will cause failures due to the new rules not being respected, which I'd like to avoid.

With the proposed feature, I would be able to upgrade to the latest version (e.g. 1.7.1) which does have Kotlin 2.2 compatibility without having to introduce all the new rules between 1.2.1 and 1.7.1. This would then allow me to upgrade the rule set on my own time.

Current Behavior

No filtering allowed unless I manually exclude new rules myself.

Additional Information

• Current version of ktlint: all

I initially proposed this in pinterest/ktlint#3099 but was redirected to the plugin itself (you can see the discussion in the thread). Let me know your thoughts on this.

[wakingrufus]

if i understand, you propose that this configuration control the version of the rules jars to depend on. I am a bit worried about that, as any kind of version mismatch between the various ktlint libraries could introduce API incompatibilities. what does this achieve that can't be done with .editorconfig to disable unwanted rules?

[hugoncosta]

No, I don't want any jar shennenigans exactly because of that. I actually tried that internally and it caused a very strange issue where if you were bringing in Ktlint via a third party package (we have team Gradle plugins), it would fail because the logger was broken somehow.

My change is to allow users to define which rules they'd like to run based on the version. The idea here is that I can continously upgrade Ktlint, Kotlin, Gradle without ever having to touch my code until I'm ready to include the new rules being introduced in each version.

what does this achieve that can't be done with .editorconfig to disable unwanted rules?

I'd need to maintain a list of unwanted rules, which I really do not want to do.

For context, my use case is the following - we maintain a couple of presets, basically an opinionated Gradle setup for all Kotlin packages within the company. I cannot simply force everyone to add the missing commas all at once, but I also cannot be stuck because Kotlin 2.1.0 is incompatible with Ktlint 1.2.1. So my proposed solve is let me upgrade to Ktlint 1.2 and ensure I don't enable any rule that was added past Ktlint 1.2

You can read more discussions around this on the implementation within Ktlint itself - Ktlint#3100 #Ktlint3