ESLint Plugin Prefer Early Return

This is a maintained fork of @regru/eslint-plugin-prefer-early-return, which extracted the prefer-early-return rule from Shopify's eslint-plugin-shopify.

The original regru fork is no longer maintained, lacks unit tests, doesn't support auto-fix, and is not compatible with ESLint 9's flat config format.

What's Different

This fork adds:

• Auto-fix capability with smart condition inversions
• Comprehensive unit tests
• TypeScript type definitions for better IDE support
• ESLint 9+ flat config support
• ESM module format
• No unwanted dependencies
• Modern Node.js (22+) compatibility

Installation

npm install @smrtnyk/eslint-plugin-prefer-early-return --save-dev

Usage

import preferEarlyReturn from '@smrtnyk/eslint-plugin-prefer-early-return';

export default [
  {
    plugins: {
      'prefer-early-return': preferEarlyReturn,
    },
    rules: {
      'prefer-early-return/prefer-early-return': ['error', {
        maximumStatements: 1,
      }],
    },
  },
];

Rule: prefer-early-return

Enforces early returns over full-body conditional wrapping in function declarations.

Options

• maximumStatements (default: 1): Maximum number of statements allowed inside the if block before requiring an early return pattern.

Examples

This rule will automatically fix violations when you run ESLint with the --fix flag.

Invalid (will be auto-fixed)

function processUser(user) {
  if (user) {
    console.log(user.name);
    saveUser(user);
  }
}

Valid (after auto-fix)

function processUser(user) {
  if (!user) {
    return;
  }
  console.log(user.name);
  saveUser(user);
}

For more details, see prefer-early-return

Development

npm test