If someone answers a code-golf challenge in, for example, JavaScript, and as an additional challenge restricts to only code that is approved by http://www.jslint.com/ that answer is valid if an interpreter exists that only accepts code that passes JSLint.
However, without the existence of such an interpreter, the answer contains non-essential whitespace and would be seen as not a serious contender, and would be subject to deletion based on the consensus in Can serious contenders do more than the challenge asks for?
My question here is whether that interpreter needs to be written before the answer would be valid. Is the existence of a JS interpreter and a separate JS linter sufficient to justify posting linter-golf answers, or must a new interpreter be written for each linter-language combination someone wants to use?