Feature request: config-driven attribute-policy linting (attr-policy)

[alexeagle]

Summary

Request a generalized, config-driven buildifier warning — attr-policy — that enforces declarative rules about BUILD attribute values without adding new Go code per policy.

Policies would live in .buildifier.json and cover constraints such as:

• forbidding specific scalar values (e.g. timeout = "eternal") unless allow-listed
• list membership (e.g. no exclusive in test tags)
• boolean literals (e.g. local = True)
• dict entries (e.g. execution_requirements = {"no-cache": "1"})
• numeric bounds (e.g. shard_count ≤ 50)

A related but separate tool (testpolicy) would read test-execution metrics and emit buildozer commands for timeout/flaky tuning; buildifier stays purely static. (similar to Google's http://go/attt )

Design doc

Draft design (Workstream A: attr-policy in buildifier; Workstream B: empirical testpolicy tool):

https://github.com/alexeagle/buildtools/blob/docs/attr-policy-test-tuning-design/docs/attribute-policy-and-test-tuning-design.md

Happy to upstream this if there is interest.

[alexeagle]

@kotlaja maybe you could take a look? I'm starting on a PR to add this.

[kotlaja]

Thanks, Alex, for working on this! :)

This looks like an interesting feature, but I think the active buildifier maintainers are much better suited to evaluate the design and its impact on the codebase. Pinging @vladmos and @oreflow - could you guys please take a look?