Ready for the next breaking change

Hi community team! Thanks for having me, and thanks for the time and effort you've put in here. I'm opening this issue to discuss the next breaking change for `@eslint-community/eslint-plugin-eslint-comments`. There are currently two PRs that include breaking changes (https://github.com/eslint-community/eslint-plugin-eslint-comments/pull/266 and https://github.com/eslint-community/eslint-plugin-eslint-comments/pull/268), but it seems the policy or standards are not fully aligned. For the next major release, I propose the following items and their rationales. ## 1. Drop support under Node.js 18 and require `^20.19.0 || ^22.13.0 || >=24` From the ESLint v10, we now support only `^20.19.0 || ^22.13.0 || >=24`. Node.js 18 have faced it's end-of-life, and the next major version update timining of `@eslint-community/eslint-plugin-eslint-comments` will align with the stable release of ESLint v10. Especially since Node.js `^20.19.0 || ^22.13.0 || >=24` enables `require(ESM)` by default without an experimental flag, parts of the ESLint plugin ecosystem are moving to ESM-only (https://github.com/eslint/json/issues/196). It would be nice to align with this and migrate the codebase to ESM-only (for the built code) and TypeScript (for the source code), as is being done in https://github.com/eslint-community/eslint-plugin-eslint-comments/pull/266. Just for reference, if we plan to support ESLint versions earlier than v10 (for example, v9 or v8), I think we can still support them even if we drop Node.js 18, since there is no technical blocker to using the latest Node.js versions. > Conclusion: `^20.19.0 || ^22.13.0 || >=24` ## 2. Drop support under ESLint v8.57.0 Based on the comment in the `typescript-eslint` repository (https://github.com/typescript-eslint/typescript-eslint/issues/11629#issuecomment-3383467807), the current ESLint proportions are as follows: | ESLint Major | Weekly DL # | User % | | ------------ | ----------- | ------ | | 7 | 4,407,794 | 7.16% | | 8 | 26,896,711 | 43.7% | | 9 | 26,087,723 | 42.39% | I think it makes sense to support up to ESLint v8 — specifically v8.57.0 — since `typescript-eslint` also supports the range `^8.57.0 || ^9.0.0`, and aligning with it would be helpful. (However, I also think dropping v8 could be a nice option, and I would actually prefer that change 😄) Also, the minimum required ESLint version for the language plugins such as JSON/CSS/Markdown is 9.15.0. It seems that support for language plugins has been added in https://github.com/eslint-community/eslint-plugin-eslint-comments/pull/257. Ref: https://github.com/eslint/markdown/blob/6371d740cd763ea0c4319d3664bdd7bbd8fb6dd5/README.md?plain=1#L20 So, for the above reason, I'd like to suggest listing ESLint as a `peerDependency` with the range `^8.57.0 || ^9.15.0 || ^10.0.0`, or something similar. (The `^9.15.0` version can be raised since there are no tests for it in the language plugins, so I'll need to re-verify.) --- After further discussion in the issue threads, it seems the team favors dropping support for ESLint v8. I'll set the minimum requirement to `^9.39.2 || ^10.0.0` to align with `eslint-plugin-n`'s approach (https://github.com/eslint-community/eslint-plugin-n/pull/503). > Conclusion: `^9.39.2 || ^10.0.0` ## 3. Add a `peerDependencies` field to language plugins and mark it as optional (`"optional": true`) ESLint now officially supports language plugins such as JSON, CSS, and Markdown. Support for this was added in https://github.com/eslint-community/eslint-plugin-eslint-comments/pull/257, but there don't seem to be any version restrictions for those plugins. As I understand it, early versions of these plugins lack certain methods, so users on older versions might encounter unexpected behavior or bugs. Therefore, I propose adding the following field to restrict plugin versions: ```json "peerDependencies": { "eslint": "^9.39.2 || ^10.0.0", "@eslint/markdown": "^8.0.0", "@eslint/json": "^1.0.0", "@eslint/css": "^1.0.0", }, "peerDependenciesMeta": { "@eslint/markdown": { "optional": true }, "@eslint/json": { "optional": true }, "@eslint/css": { "optional": true }, }, ``` If we add the `optional` field, these plugins won't be installed automatically, and the restriction will only apply when the language plugins are installed. As far as I know, this is technically a breaking change, since older versions of the language plugins won't be supported. ## Anything else? I'm new here, so I may have missed something and other team members might have different perspectives. I think it would be helpful to discuss the future of `@eslint-community/eslint-plugin-eslint-comments`.