If it is mainly a Node.js project that should be linted, then I would switch the "browser" setting for a "node" setting, but no matter if the default is that the javascript files are meant for a Node.js environment or a browser environment one can always override it in a specific file by adding the JSLint-compatible settings:
/*jslint node: true */
Or:
/*jslint browser: true */
The first one I would eg. add to the Gruntfile.js of an otherwise browser only setup so that I can ensure that also the Gruntfile conforms to the correct coding style.
Another good thing one can add to a file is:
/*global jQuery: true, foobar: true */
That tells JSHint (and JSLint) that those globals are available and that it shouldn't complain of them being undefined. A good way to explicitly point out the expected globals from other files at the top of a JS-file.