Writing New Firefox-Specific Static Analysis Checks

This section is intended to help Mozilla engineers either casually play with writing a static analysis check or seriously develop one we can land and run internally. While being written for internal consumption, it’s broadly applicable outside Mozilla.

• Using clang-query
  • Recommended Boilerplate
  • clang-query Options
  • Patches
• Using Compiler Explorer
  • Quick-Start
  • Compiler Explorer Customizations
• Writing Matchers
  • Types of Matchers
  • Example of Iterative Matcher Development
• Matcher Cookbook
• Adding a check
  • Boilerplate Steps to Add a New Check
  • Converting your matcher to C++
  • Wiring up Warnings and Errors
  • Running it on Central
• Advanced Check Features
  • Adding Tests
  • Using Bind To Output More Useful Information
  • Repeated matcher calls
  • Allow-listing existing callsites
  • Custom Annotations