diff --git a/.Rbuildignore b/.Rbuildignore
index e0910dd700..835c4165fc 100644
--- a/.Rbuildignore
+++ b/.Rbuildignore
@@ -27,7 +27,10 @@ testthat-problems[.]rds$
 ^_pkgdown\.yaml$
 ^docs$
 ^pkgdown$
-^vignettes/[^-]+.gif$
+# large files not needed for CRAN
+^man/figures/logo[.]png$
+# keep '-still.gif' compact versions
+^vignettes/.*([^l]|[^l]l|[^i]ll|[^t]ill|[^s]till)[.]gif$
 ^CRAN-SUBMISSION$
 ^CODE_OF_CONDUCT\.md$
 ^paper$
diff --git a/.dev/revdep_get_repos.R b/.dev/revdep_get_repos.R
index c367cb5b14..b592c5d15d 100755
--- a/.dev/revdep_get_repos.R
+++ b/.dev/revdep_get_repos.R
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env Rscript
 # Script to get URL keys from CRAN
-#   of packags that Suggest or Import lintr
+#   of packages that Suggest or Import lintr
 
 cran_db <- as.data.frame(available.packages(repos = "https://cran.r-project.org"), stringsAsFactors = FALSE)
 lintr_re <- "\\blintr\\b"
@@ -50,12 +50,12 @@ git_urls <- extract_github_repo(urls)
 matched <- nzchar(git_urls)
 
 utils::write.csv(
-  data.frame(package = lintr_pkg[!matched], repo = file.path("https://github.com/cran", lintr_pkg[!matched])), # nolint: strings_as_factors_linter.
+  data.frame(package = lintr_pkg[!matched], repo = file.path("https://github.com/cran", lintr_pkg[!matched])),
   "revdep-no-repos",
   row.names = FALSE, quote = FALSE
 )
 utils::write.csv(
-  data.frame(package = lintr_pkg[matched], repo = git_urls[matched]), # nolint: strings_as_factors_linter.
+  data.frame(package = lintr_pkg[matched], repo = git_urls[matched]),
   "revdep-repos",
   row.names = FALSE, quote = FALSE
 )
diff --git a/.devcontainer/devcontainer.json b/.devcontainer/devcontainer.json
index b30eaba322..0180c8b30b 100644
--- a/.devcontainer/devcontainer.json
+++ b/.devcontainer/devcontainer.json
@@ -1,3 +1,3 @@
 {
-    "build": { "dockerfile": "Dockerfile", "context": ".."}
+    "build": { "dockerfile": "r-devel/Dockerfile", "context": ".."}
 }
diff --git a/.devcontainer/Dockerfile b/.devcontainer/r-base/Dockerfile
similarity index 100%
rename from .devcontainer/Dockerfile
rename to .devcontainer/r-base/Dockerfile
diff --git a/.devcontainer/r-base/devcontainer.json b/.devcontainer/r-base/devcontainer.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..3eb3bbe064
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.devcontainer/r-base/devcontainer.json
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+{
+  "build": { "dockerfile": "Dockerfile", "context": "../.." }
+}
diff --git a/.devcontainer/r-devel/Dockerfile b/.devcontainer/r-devel/Dockerfile
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..2874e03b27
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.devcontainer/r-devel/Dockerfile
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+FROM docker.io/rhub/r-minimal:devel
+
+RUN apk update && \
+  apk add --no-cache git gcc g++ libxml2 linux-headers musl-dev
+
+COPY DESCRIPTION .
+
+RUN Rscript -e '                                \
+  options(repos="https://cloud.r-project.org"); \
+  install.packages("remotes");                  \
+  remotes::install_deps(dependencies = c(       \
+    "Imports",                                  \
+    "Config/needs/development"                  \
+  ))                                            \
+'
diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
index 87ec42de21..6d0e97ad1e 100644
--- a/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 Package: lintr
 Title: A 'Linter' for R Code
-Version: 3.1.2.9000
+Version: 3.2.0
 Authors@R: c(
     person("Jim", "Hester", , role = "aut"),
     person("Florent", "Angly", role = "aut",
diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index cf11387b77..f6aa8b0c55 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 
 ## Deprecations & breaking changes
 
-* Various things marked deprecated since {lintr} 3.0.0 have been fully deprecated. They will be completely removed in the subsequent release.
+* Various things marked deprecated since {lintr} 3.0.0 have been fully deprecated. They will be completely removed in the subsequent release. See previous NEWS for advice on how to replace them.
    + `source_file=` argument to `ids_with_token()` and `with_id()`.
    + Passing linters by name or as non-`"linter"`-classed functions.
    + `linter=` argument of `Lint()`.
@@ -10,15 +10,15 @@
    + Linters `closed_curly_linter()`, `open_curly_linter()`, `paren_brace_linter()`, and `semicolon_terminator_linter()`.
    + Helper `with_defaults()`.
 * `all_linters()` has signature `all_linters(..., packages)` rather than `all_linters(packages, ...)` (#2332, @MichaelChirico). This forces `packages=` to be supplied by name and will break users who rely on supplying `packages=` positionally, of which we found none searching GitHub.
-* Adjusted various lint messages for consistency in readability (#1330, @MichaelChirico). In general, we favor lint messages to be phrased like "Action, reason" to but the "what" piece of the message front-and-center. This may be a breaking change for code that tests the specific phrasing of lints.
-* `extraction_operator_linter()` is deprecated. Although switching from `$` to `[[` has some robustness benefits for package code, it can lead to non-idiomatic code in many contexts (e.g. R6 classes, Shiny applications, etc.) (#2409, @IndrajeetPatil). To enable the detection of the `$` operator for extraction through partial matching, use `options(warnPartialMatchDollar = TRUE)`.
+* Adjusted various lint messages for consistency and readability (#1330, @MichaelChirico). In general, we favor lint messages to be phrased like "Action, reason" to put the "what" piece of the message front-and-center. This may be a breaking change for code that tests the specific phrasing of lints.
+* `extraction_operator_linter()` is deprecated. Although switching from `$` to `[[` has some robustness benefits for package code, it can lead to non-idiomatic code in many contexts (e.g. R6 classes, Shiny applications, etc.) (#2409, @IndrajeetPatil). One reason to avoid `$` is that it allows partial matching where `[[` does not. Use `options(warnPartialMatchDollar = TRUE)` to disable this feature and restore some parity to using `$` vs. `[[`.
 * `unnecessary_nested_if_linter()` is deprecated and subsumed into the new/more general `unnecessary_nesting_linter()`.
-* Drop support for posting GitHub comments from inside GitHub comment bot, Travis, Wercker, and Jenkins CI tools (spurred by #2148, @MichaelChirico). We rely on GitHub Actions for linting in CI, and don't see any active users relying on these alternatives. We welcome and encourage community contributions to get support for different CI system going again.
-* `cyclocomp_linter()` is no longer part of the default linters (#2555, @IndrajeetPatil) because the tidyverse style guide doesn't contain any guidelines on meeting certain complexity requirements. Note that users with `cyclocomp_linter()` in their configs may now need to install {cyclocomp} intentionally, in particular in CI/CD pipelines.
-* `scalar_in_linter` is now configurable to allow other `%in%` like operators to be linted. The data.table operator `%chin%` is no longer linted by default; use `in_operators = "%chin%"` to continue linting it. (@F-Noelle)
+* Dropped support for posting GitHub comments from inside GitHub comment bot, Travis, Wercker, and Jenkins CI tools (spurred by #2148, @MichaelChirico). We rely on GitHub Actions for linting in CI, and don't see any active users relying on these alternatives. We welcome and encourage community contributions to get support for different CI systems going again.
+* `cyclocomp_linter()` is no longer part of the default linters (#2555, @IndrajeetPatil) because the tidyverse style guide doesn't contain any guidelines on meeting certain complexity requirements. With this, we also downgrade {cyclocomp} from `Imports:` to `Suggests:`. Note that users with `cyclocomp_linter()` in their configs may now need to install {cyclocomp} intentionally, in particular in CI/CD pipelines.
+* `scalar_in_linter()` is now configurable to allow other `%in%`-like operators to be linted. The data.table operator `%chin%` is no longer linted by default; use `in_operators = "%chin%"` to continue linting it. (@F-Noelle)
 * `lint()` and friends now normalize paths to forward slashes on Windows (@olivroy, #2613).
 * `undesirable_function_linter()`, `undesirable_operator_linter()`, and `list_comparison_linter()` were removed from the tag `efficiency` (@IndrajeetPatil, #2655). If you use `linters_with_tags("efficiency")` to include these linters, you'll need to adjust your config to keep linting your code against them. We did not find any such users on GitHub.
-* Arguments `allow_cascading_assign=`, `allow_right_assign=`, and `allow_pipe_assign=` to `assignment_linter()` are all deprecated in favor of the new `operator=` argument. Usage of a positional first argument like `assignment_linter(TRUE)`, of which we found 0 cases on GitHub, is totally deprecated to allow `operator=` to be positionally first. See below about the new argument.
+* Arguments `allow_cascading_assign=`, `allow_right_assign=`, and `allow_pipe_assign=` to `assignment_linter()` are all deprecated in favor of the new `operator=` argument. Usage of a positional first argument like `assignment_linter(TRUE)`, of which we found zero cases on GitHub, is totally deprecated to allow `operator=` to be positionally first. See below about the new argument.
 
 ## Bug fixes
 
@@ -26,9 +26,8 @@
 * `object_name_linter()` no longer errors when user-supplied `regexes=` have capture groups (#2188, @MichaelChirico).
 * `.lintr` config validation correctly accepts regular expressions which only compile under `perl = TRUE` (#2375, @MichaelChirico). These have always been valid (since `rex::re_matches()`, which powers the lint exclusion logic, also uses this setting), but the new up-front validation in v3.1.1 incorrectly used `perl = FALSE`.
 * `.lintr` configs set by option `lintr.linter_file` or environment variable `R_LINTR_LINTER_FILE` can point to subdirectories (#2512, @MichaelChirico).
-* `indentation_linter()` returns `ranges[1L]==1L` when the offending line has 0 spaces (#2550, @MichaelChirico).
-* `literal_coercion_linter()` doesn't surface a warning about NAs during coercion for code like `as.integer("a")` (#2566, @MichaelChirico).
-* `commented_code_linter()` can detect commented code that ends with a pipe (#2671, @jcken95)
+* `indentation_linter()` returns lints with `ranges[1L]==1L` when the offending line has 0 spaces (#2550, @MichaelChirico).
+* `literal_coercion_linter()` doesn't surface a warning about `NA`s during coercion for code like `as.integer("a")` (#2566, @MichaelChirico).
 
 ## Changes to default linters
 
@@ -36,47 +35,47 @@
 
 ## New and improved features
 
+* New function node caching for big efficiency gains to most linters (e.g. overall `lint_package()` improvement of 14-27% and core linting improvement up to 30%; #2357, @AshesITR). Most linters are written around function usage, and XPath performance searching for many functions is poor. The new `xml_find_function_calls()` entry in the `get_source_expressions()` output caches all function call nodes instead. See the vignette on creating linters for more details on how to use it.
+* `Linter()` has a new argument `linter_level=` (default `NA`). This is used by `lint()` to more efficiently check for expression levels than the idiom `if (!is_lint_level(...)) { return(list()) }` (#2351, @AshesITR).
+* New `return_linter()` also has arguments for fine-tuning which functions get linted:
+  + `return_style=` (`"implicit"` by default) which checks that all functions confirm to the specified return style of `"implicit"` or `"explicit"` (#2271 and part of #884, @MichaelChirico, @AshesITR and @MEO265).
+  + `allow_implicit_else=` (default `TRUE`) which, when `FALSE`, checks that all terminal `if` statements are paired with a corresponding `else` statement (part of #884, @MichaelChirico).
+  + `return_functions=` to customize which functions are equivalent to `return()` as "exit" clauses, e.g. `rlang::abort()` can be considered in addition to the default functions like `stop()` and `q()` from base (#2271 and part of #884, @MichaelChirico and @MEO265).
+  + `except=` to customize which functions are ignored entirely (i.e., whether they have a return of the specified style is not checked; #2271 and part of #884, @MichaelChirico and @MEO265). Namespace hooks like `.onAttach()` and `.onLoad()` are always ignored.
+  + `except_regex=`, the same purpose as `except=`, but filters functions by pattern. This is motivated by {RUnit}, where test suites are based on unit test functions matched by pattern, e.g. `^Test`, and where explicit return may be awkward (#2335, @MichaelChirico).
+* `assignment_linter()` can be fully customized with the new `operator=` argument to specify an exact vector of assignment operators to allow (#2441, @MichaelChirico and @J-Moravec). The default is `<-` and `<<-`; authors wishing to use `=` (only) for assignment in their codebase can use `operator = "="`. This supersedes several old arguments: to accomplish `allow_cascading_assign=TRUE`, add `"<<-"` (and/or `"->>"`) to `operator=`; for `allow_right_assign=TRUE`, add `"->"` (and/or `"->>"`) to `operator=`; for `allow_pipe_assign=TRUE`, add `"%<>%"` to `operator=`. Use `operator = "any"` to denote "ignore all assignment operators"; in this case, only the value of `allow_trailing=` matters. Implicit assignments with `<-` are always ignored by `assignment_linter()`; use `implicit_assignment_linter()` to handle linting these.
 * More helpful errors for invalid configs (#2253, @MichaelChirico).
 * `library_call_linter()` is extended
   + to encourage all packages to be attached with `library(symbol)`, not `library("symbol", character.only = TRUE)` or "vectorized" approaches looping over package names (part of #884, @MichaelChirico).
   + to discourage many consecutive calls to `suppressMessages()` or `suppressPackageStartupMessages()` (part of #884, @MichaelChirico).
-* `return_linter()` also has arguments for fine-tuning which functions get linted:
-  + `return_style` (`"implicit"` by default) which checks that all functions confirm to the specified return style of `"implicit"` or `"explicit"` (#2271 and part of #884, @MichaelChirico, @AshesITR and @MEO265).
-  + `allow_implicit_else` (default `TRUE`) which, when `FALSE`, checks that all terminal `if` statements are paired with a corresponding `else` statement (part of #884, @MichaelChirico).
-  + `return_functions` to customize which functions are equivalent to `return()` as "exit" clauses, e.g. `rlang::abort()` can be considered in addition to the default functions like `stop()` and `q()` from base (#2271 and part of #884, @MichaelChirico and @MEO265).
-  + `except` to customize which functions are ignored entirely (i.e., whether they have a return of the specified style is not checked; #2271 and part of #884, @MichaelChirico and @MEO265). Namespace hooks like `.onAttach()` and `.onLoad()` are always ignored.
-  + `except_regex`, the same purpose as `except=`, but filters functions by pattern. This is motivated by {RUnit}, where test suites are based on unit test functions matched by pattern, e.g. `^Test`, and where explicit return may be awkward (#2335, @MichaelChirico).
-* `unnecessary_lambda_linter` is extended to encourage vectorized comparisons where possible, e.g. `sapply(x, sum) > 0` instead of `sapply(x, function(x) sum(x) > 0)` (part of #884, @MichaelChirico). Toggle this behavior with argument `allow_comparison`.
+* `unnecessary_lambda_linter()` is extended to encourage vectorized comparisons where possible, e.g. `sapply(x, sum) > 0` instead of `sapply(x, function(x) sum(x) > 0)` (part of #884, @MichaelChirico). Toggle this behavior with argument `allow_comparison=`.
 * `backport_linter()` is slightly faster by moving expensive computations outside the linting function (#2339, #2348, @AshesITR and @MichaelChirico).
-* `Linter()` has a new argument `linter_level` (default `NA`). This is used by `lint()` to more efficiently check for expression levels than the idiom `if (!is_lint_level(...)) { return(list()) }` (#2351, @AshesITR).
 * `string_boundary_linter()` recognizes regular expression calls like `grepl("^abc$", x)` that can be replaced by using `==` instead (#1613, @MichaelChirico).
-* `unreachable_code_linter()` has an argument `allow_comment_regex` for customizing which "terminal" comments to exclude (#2327, @MichaelChirico). `# nolint end` comments are always excluded, as are {covr} exclusions (e.g. `# nocov end`) by default.
-* `format()` and `print()` methods for `lint` and `lints` classes get a new option `width` to control the printing width of lint messages (#1884, @MichaelChirico). The default is controlled by a new option `lintr.format_width`; if unset, no wrapping occurs (matching earlier behavior).
+* `unreachable_code_linter()` has an argument `allow_comment_regex=` for customizing which "terminal" comments to exclude (#2327, @MichaelChirico). Exclusion comments from {lintr} and {covr} (e.g. `# nocov end`) are always excluded.
+* `format()` and `print()` methods for `lint` and `lints` classes get a new option `width=` to control the printing width of lint messages (#1884, @MichaelChirico). The default is controlled by a new option `lintr.format_width`; if unset, no wrapping occurs (matching earlier behavior).
 * `implicit_assignment_linter()` gets a custom message for the case of using `(` to induce printing like `(x <- foo())`; use an explicit call to `print()` for clarity (#2257, @MichaelChirico).
-* New function node caching for big efficiency gains to most linters (e.g. overall `lint_package()` improvement of 14-27% and core linting improvement up to 30%; #2357, @AshesITR). Most linters are written around function usage, and XPath performance searching for many functions is poor. The new `xml_find_function_calls()` entry in the `get_source_expressions()` output caches all function call nodes instead. See the vignette on creating linters for more details on how to use it.
-* `todo_comment_linter()` has a new argument `except_regex` for setting _valid_ TODO comments, e.g. for forcing TODO comments to be linked to GitHub issues like `TODO(#154)` (#2047, @MichaelChirico).
+* `todo_comment_linter()` has a new argument `except_regex=` for setting _valid_ TODO comments, e.g. for forcing TODO comments to be linked to GitHub issues like `TODO(#154)` (#2047, @MichaelChirico).
 * `vector_logic_linter()` is extended to recognize incorrect usage of scalar operators `&&` and `||` inside subsetting expressions like `dplyr::filter(x, A && B)` (#2166, @MichaelChirico).
 * `any_is_na_linter()` is extended to catch the unusual usage `NA %in% x` (#2113, @MichaelChirico).
-* `make_linter_from_xpath()` errors up front when `lint_message` is missing (instead of delaying this error until the linter is used, #2541, @MichaelChirico).
+* `make_linter_from_xpath()` errors up front when `lint_message=` is missing (instead of delaying this error until the linter is used, #2541, @MichaelChirico).
 * `paste_linter()` is extended to recommend using `paste()` instead of `paste0()` for simply aggregating a character vector with `collapse=`, i.e., when `sep=` is irrelevant (#1108, @MichaelChirico).
 * `expect_no_lint()` was added as new function to cover the typical use case of expecting no lint message, akin to the recent {testthat} functions like `expect_no_warning()` (#2580, @F-Noelle).
 * `lint()` and friends emit a message if no lints are found (#2643, @IndrajeetPatil).
-* `{lintr}` now has a hex sticker (https://github.com/rstudio/hex-stickers/pull/110). Thank you, @gregswinehart!
-* `assignment_linter()` can be fully customized with the new `operator=` argument to specify an exact vector of assignment operators to allow (#2441, @MichaelChirico and @J-Moravec). The default is `<-` and `<<-`; authors wishing to use `=` (only) for assignment in their codebase can use `operator = "="`. This supersedes several old arguments: to accomplish `allow_cascading_assign=TRUE`, add `"<<-"` (and/or `"->>"`) to `operator=`; for `allow_right_assign=TRUE`, add `"->"` (and/or `"->>"`) to `operator=`; for `allow_pipe_assign=TRUE`, add `"%<>%"` to `operator=`. Use `operator = "any"` to denote "ignore all assignment operators"; in this case, only the value of `allow_trailing=` matters. Implicit assignments with `<-` are always ignored by `assignment_linter()`; use `implicit_assignment_linter()` to handle linting these.
+* `commented_code_linter()` can detect commented code that ends with a pipe (#2671, @jcken95)
 
 ### New linters
 
 * `condition_call_linter()` for ensuring consistent use of `call.` in `warning()` and `stop()`. The default `call. = FALSE` follows the tidyverse guidance of not displaying the call (#2226, @Bisaloo)
 * `sample_int_linter()` for encouraging `sample.int(n, ...)` over equivalents like `sample(1:n, ...)` (part of #884, @MichaelChirico).
-* `stopifnot_all_linter()` discourages tests with `all()` like `stopifnot(all(x > 0))`; `stopifnot()` runs `all()` itself, and uses a better error message (part of #884, @MichaelChirico).
+* `stopifnot_all_linter()` discourages tests with `all()` like `stopifnot(all(x > 0))`; `stopifnot()` runs `all()` itself, and signals a better error message (part of #884, @MichaelChirico).
 * `comparison_negation_linter()` for discouraging negated comparisons when a direct negation is preferable, e.g. `!(x == y)` could be `x != y` (part of #884, @MichaelChirico).
 * `nzchar_linter()` for encouraging `nzchar()` to test for empty strings, e.g. `nchar(x) > 0` can be `nzchar(x)` (part of #884, @MichaelChirico).
 * `terminal_close_linter()` for discouraging using `close()` to end functions (part of #884, @MichaelChirico). Such usages are not robust to errors, where `close()` will not be run as intended. Put `close()` in an `on.exit()` hook, or use {withr} to manage connections with proper cleanup.
-* `rep_len_linter()` for encouraging use of `rep_len()` directly instead of `rep(x, length.out = n)` (part of #884, @MichaelChirico).
+* `rep_len_linter()` for encouraging use of `rep_len()` directly instead of `rep(x, length.out = n)` (part of #884, @MichaelChirico). Note that in older versions of R (e.g. pre-4.0), `rep_len()` may not copy attributes as expected.
 * `which_grepl_linter()` for discouraging `which(grepl(ptn, x))` in favor of directly using `grep(ptn, x)` (part of #884, @MichaelChirico).
 * `list_comparison_linter()` for discouraging comparisons on the output of `lapply()`, e.g. `lapply(x, sum) > 10` (part of #884, @MichaelChirico).
 * `print_linter()` for discouraging usage of `print()` on string literals like `print("Reached here")` or `print(paste("Found", nrow(DF), "rows."))` (#1894, @MichaelChirico).
-* `unnecessary_nesting_linter()` for discouraging overly-nested code where an early return or eliminated sub-expression (inside '{') is preferable (#2317, #2334 and part of #884, @MichaelChirico).
+* `unnecessary_nesting_linter()` for discouraging overly-nested code where an early return or eliminated sub-expression (inside `{`) is preferable (#2317, #2334 and part of #884, @MichaelChirico).
 * `consecutive_mutate_linter()` for encouraging consecutive calls to `dplyr::mutate()` to be combined (part of #884, @MichaelChirico).
 * `if_switch_linter()` for encouraging `switch()` over repeated `if`/`else` tests (#2322 and part of #884, @MichaelChirico).
 * `nested_pipe_linter()` for discouraging pipes within pipes, e.g. `df1 %>% inner_join(df2 %>% select(a, b))` (part of #884, @MichaelChirico).
@@ -92,7 +91,8 @@
 
 ## Notes
 
-* All user-facing messages (including progress bars) are now prepared using the `{cli}` package (#2418 and #2641, @IndrajeetPatil). All messages have been reviewed and updated to be more informative and consistent.
+* `{lintr}` now has a hex sticker (https://github.com/rstudio/hex-stickers/pull/110). Thank you, @gregswinehart!
+* All user-facing messages (including progress bars) are now prepared using the `{cli}` package (#2418 and #2641, @IndrajeetPatil). As noted above, all messages have been reviewed and updated to be more informative and consistent.
 * File locations in lints and error messages contain clickable hyperlinks to improve code navigation (#2645, #2588, @olivroy).
 * {lintr} now depends on R version 4.0.0. It already does so implicitly due to recursive upstream dependencies requiring this version; we've simply made that dependency explicit and up-front (#2569, @MichaelChirico).
 * Some code with parameters accepting regular expressions is less strict about whether there are capture groups  (#2678, @MichaelChirico). In particular, this affects `unreachable_code_linter(allow_comment_regex=)` and `expect_lint(checks=)`.
diff --git a/R/backport_linter.R b/R/backport_linter.R
index bb3dc4c306..d3bd14b447 100644
--- a/R/backport_linter.R
+++ b/R/backport_linter.R
@@ -131,34 +131,37 @@ normalize_r_version <- function(r_version) {
 # devel NEWS https://cran.rstudio.com/doc/manuals/r-devel/NEWS.html
 # release NEWS https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-release/NEWS.html
 backports <- list(
+  `4.4.0` = character(), # need character() entries for oldrel specifications
+  `4.3.3` = character(),
   `4.3.0` = c("R_compiled_by", "array2DF"),
+  `4.2.3` = character(),
   `4.2.1` = "findCRANmirror",
   `4.2.0` = c(".pretty", ".LC.categories", "Sys.setLanguage()"),
-  `4.1.3` = character(), # need these for oldrel specifications
+  `4.1.3` = character(),
   `4.1.0` = c("numToBits", "numToInts", "gregexec", "charClass", "checkRdContents", "...names"),
-  `4.0.5` = character(), # need these for oldrel specifications
+  `4.0.5` = character(),
   `4.0.0` = c(
     ".class2", ".S3method", "activeBindingFunction", "deparse1", "globalCallingHandlers",
     "infoRDS", "list2DF", "marginSums", "proportions", "R_user_dir", "socketTimeout", "tryInvokeRestart"
   ),
-  `3.6.3` = character(), # need these for oldrel specifications
+  `3.6.3` = character(),
   `3.6.0` = c(
     "asplit", "hcl.colors", "hcl.pals", "mem.maxNsize", "mem.maxVsize", "nullfile", "str2lang",
     "str2expression", "update_PACKAGES"
   ),
-  `3.5.3` = character(), # need these for oldrel specifications
+  `3.5.3` = character(),
   `3.5.0` = c("...elt", "...length", "askYesNo", "getDefaultCluster", "isFALSE", "packageDate", "warnErrList"),
-  `3.4.4` = character(), # need these for oldrel specifications
+  `3.4.4` = character(),
   `3.4.0` = c(
     "check_packages_in_dir_details", "CRAN_package_db", "debugcall", "hasName",
     "isS3stdgeneric", "strcapture", "Sys.setFileTime", "undebugcall"
   ),
-  `3.3.3` = character(), # need these for oldrel specifications
+  `3.3.3` = character(),
   `3.3.0` = c(
     ".traceback", "chkDots", "curlGetHeaders", "endsWith", "grouping", "isS3method",
     "makevars_site", "makevars_user", "Rcmd", "sigma", "startsWith", "strrep", "validEnc", "validUTF8"
   ),
-  `3.2.5` = character(), # need these for oldrel specifications
+  `3.2.5` = character(),
   `3.2.0` = c(
     ".getNamespaceInfo", "check_packages_in_dir_changes", "debuggingState",
     "dir.exists", "dynGet", "extSoftVersion", "get0", "grSoftVersion", "hsearch_db",
diff --git a/tests/testthat/test-backport_linter.R b/tests/testthat/test-backport_linter.R
index bf0ad978af..27598548c4 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/test-backport_linter.R
+++ b/tests/testthat/test-backport_linter.R
@@ -38,8 +38,8 @@ test_that("backport_linter detects backwards-incompatibility", {
 
   # oldrel specification
   expect_lint(
-    ".pretty(2)",
-    rex::rex(".pretty (R 4.2.0) is not available for dependency R >= 4.1.3."),
+    "R_compiled_by()",
+    rex::rex("R_compiled_by (R 4.3.0) is not available for dependency R >= 4.2.3."),
     backport_linter("oldrel")
   )
 
@@ -50,13 +50,13 @@ test_that("backport_linter detects backwards-incompatibility", {
 
   expect_lint(
     "numToBits(2)",
-    rex::rex("numToBits (R 4.1.0) is not available for dependency R >= 3.6.3."),
+    rex::rex("numToBits (R 4.1.0) is not available for dependency R >= 4.0.5."),
     backport_linter("oldrel-3")
   )
   # no interference from namespace-qualification (even of base functions)
   expect_lint(
     "base::numToBits(2)",
-    rex::rex("numToBits (R 4.1.0) is not available for dependency R >= 3.6.3."),
+    rex::rex("numToBits (R 4.1.0) is not available for dependency R >= 4.0.5."),
     backport_linter("oldrel-3")
   )