bin/linter.mjs fails on auto-generated protos/protos.d.ts due to @typescript-eslint/no-empty-interface

[quirogas]

Summary

The monorepo linter (bin/linter.mjs), which executes in .github/workflows/presubmit.yaml, fails when pull requests include changes to auto-generated protobuf declaration files (packages/*/protos/protos.d.ts).

Observations

1. Linter Scope: bin/linter.mjs selects changed TypeScript files via git diff ... -- *.ts. In Git, this pattern matches *.d.ts files, including packages/*/protos/protos.d.ts.
2. ESLint Error: ESLint evaluates protos/protos.d.ts and fails with @typescript-eslint/no-empty-interface on empty interfaces:

   error  An empty interface is equivalent to `{}`  @typescript-eslint/no-empty-interface
   ✖ problems (errors, warnings)
   [ERROR] ESLint violations were detected.
   

3. Repository-Wide Impact:
   • Protobuf messages with no fields (e.g. google.protobuf.Empty, VisibilityFeature, etc.) are compiled by protobufjs (pbts) into empty TypeScript interfaces (interface I<Name> {}).
   • A scan of the repository shows that 243 out of 243 (100%) protos/protos.d.ts files across all packages contain empty interfaces.
   • Any pull request that modifies or regenerates protos/protos.d.ts in any package currently triggers this linter failure.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Modify or regenerate protos/protos.d.ts in any package (e.g. packages/google-maps-areainsights/protos/protos.d.ts or packages/google-cloud-chronicle/protos/protos.d.ts).
2. Commit the change.
3. Run GIT_DIFF_ARG="HEAD~1...HEAD" node ./bin/linter.mjs --strict.
4. The linter exits with code 1 and reports @typescript-eslint/no-empty-interface violations.