wildcard_enum_match_arm does not lint wildcards that cover Option<LocalEnum> variants

[Sigurthorb]

Summary

wildcard_enum_match_arm does not fire when matching Option<LocalEnum> or Result<LocalEnum, _> with _. The wildcard silently covers both None and any unmatched Some(Variant), meaning new enum variants are swallowed without warning — exactly what this lint is designed to prevent.

The lint skips Option because it's a foreign/std type. But when the inner type is a local enum, the _ arm defeats exhaustiveness protection. The safe alternative is to destructure the Option first and match the inner enum directly, but nothing guides the developer toward this pattern.

Proposal: Either extend wildcard_enum_match_arm to fire when a wildcard covers Some(T)/Ok(T) where T is an enum that would otherwise trigger the lint, or introduce a separate lint for this case.

I would be interested in contributing to either extending the lint or creating a new one, depending on

Version

rustc 1.95.0 (59807616e 2026-04-14)                                                                                                                      
clippy 0.1.96 (ac68faa20c 2026-05-25)

Lint Name

wildcard_enum_match_arm

Reproducer

I tried this code:

#![deny(clippy::wildcard_enum_match_arm)]

enum Action {
    Create,
    Delete,
}

fn handle(action: Option<Action>) -> &'static str {
    match action {
        Some(Action::Create) => "creating",
        _ => "nothing", // covers None AND Some(Action::Delete)
    }
}

I expected to see this happen: a warning that the _ arm covers Some(Action::Delete) (and would silently cover any future variants added to Action).

Instead, this happened: no warning. If a developer adds Action::Update, it is silently caught by _ with no compiler or clippy diagnostic.

The safe pattern that preserves exhaustiveness:

fn handle(action: Option<Action>) -> &'static str {
    let Some(action) = action else { return "nothing" };
    match action {
        Action::Create => "creating",
        Action::Delete => "nothing",
    }
}

Version

rustc 1.96.0 (ac68faa20 2026-05-25)
binary: rustc
commit-hash: ac68faa20c58cbccd01ee7208bf3b6e93a7d7f96
commit-date: 2026-05-25
host: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
release: 1.96.0
LLVM version: 22.1.2

[Jarcho]

It doesn't handle any nested enums, not just Option and Result. For Result this would also prevent matching on Err(_) which might not be wanted.

[ronnodas]

Since this is already a restriction lint, an even stricter version that does trigger on any _ used for an (exhaustive) enum could be reasonable, perhaps behind a configuration option.