Follow-up to #1998 -- actually as.data.table() experiences a similar regression from v3.0.2 to HEAD, just that it's not breaking any tested downstreams. I have relied on this behavior in interactive cases, though.

I think the enigmatic Enhances is the proper place for the new dependency, per WRE:

‘Enhances’... lists packages “enhanced” by the package at hand, e.g., by providing methods for classes from these packages...

OTOH we might just "keep it simple" and put data.table in Suggests.

Currently as.data.table() works very poorly b/c of dispatch:

data.table::as.data.table(lintr::lint(text="a=1", linters=lintr::assignment_linter()))
#                            <text>
# 1:                         <text>
# 2:                              1
# 3:                              2
# 4:                          style
# 5: Use <-, not =, for assignment.
# 6:                            a=1
# 7:                      <list[1]>
# 8:              assignment_linter