On a similar linting/formatting topic, there's guidance in the docs to use

--changed-since

to reduce how much stuff needs to be linted/formatted, but this can actually lead to linting/formatting files that haven't actually changed. Specifically, changing a BUILD file causes its related files to be considered to have changed, so those goals will run against files that haven't actually been changed. Is that just an oversight, or is there some reason you'd want to do that?

A change in a BUILD file could mean a change in what files are linted/formatted and how they are linted/formatted. So if a BUILD file is changed, then its dependents should be classed as changed also. I don’t think it computes this change relationship any more granularly than file -> file, but there’s probably cases where it could depending on the command.

Ah, that'd make sense alright. Thanks!

I was actually correct on that last point, here’s somebody who knows more than me saying so: https://pantsbuild.slack.com/archives/C046T6T9U/p1720524963005889?thread_ts=1720489923.232569&cid=C046T6T9U

Empirically I've seen the same 😄