Go Development Patterns
When to Use
Go services/CLIs, job scheduling, Docker API, LDAP/AD clients, resilience patterns, test suites.
Required Workflow
For reviews, invoke related skills: security-audit (OWASP), enterprise-readiness (OpenSSF/SLSA), github-project (branch protection). A review is NOT complete until all are executed.
Core Principles
Type Safety
- Avoid:
interface{}(useany),sync.Map, scattered type assertions, reflection - Prefer: Generics
[T any],errors.AsType[T](Go 1.26), concrete types - Run
go fix./...after upgrades
Consistency
- One pattern per problem domain
- Match existing codebase patterns
- Refactor holistically or not at all
- Config precedence: defaults < config file < env vars < flags
Testing
- Build tags isolate test tiers: unit (default),
integration,e2e - Always use
t.Parallel(),t.Helper(), table-driven subtests - Use
log/slogdirectly -- never wrap it in custom Logger interfaces
Conventions
- Errors: lowercase, no punctuation (
errors.New("invalid input")) - Naming: ID, URL, HTTP (not Id, Url, Http)
- Error wrapping:
fmt.Errorf("failed to process: %w", err)
References
Git hooks: ls lefthook.yml 2>/dev/null && lefthook install || echo "Add lefthook — see references/lefthook-template.md"
Load as needed:
| Reference | Purpose |
|---|---|
references/architecture.md | Package structure, config management, middleware chains |
references/logging.md | Structured logging with log/slog, migration from logrus |
references/cron-scheduling.md | go-cron patterns: named jobs, runtime updates, context, resilience |
references/resilience.md | Retry logic, graceful shutdown, context propagation |
references/docker.md | Docker client patterns, buffer pooling |
references/ldap.md | LDAP/Active Directory integration |
references/testing.md | Test strategies, build tags, table-driven tests |
references/linting.md | golangci-lint v2, staticcheck, code quality |
references/api-design.md | Bitmask options, functional options, builders |
references/fuzz-testing.md | Go fuzzing patterns, security seeds |
references/mutation-testing.md | Gremlins configuration, test quality measurement |
references/makefile.md | Standard Makefile interface for CI/CD |
references/modernization.md | Go 1.26 modernizers, go fix, errors.AsType[T], wg.Go() |
references/lefthook-template.md | Ready-to-use lefthook.yml for Go project git hooks |
references/reusable-workflows.md | Reusable Actions workflow callers, permission propagation, release-gate outputs |
references/single-build-release.md | Single-build release: cross-compile once, reuse for release+container |
Quality Gates
Run before completing any review:
golangci-lint run --timeout 5m # Linting
go vet ./... # Static analysis
staticcheck ./... # Additional checks
govulncheck ./... # Vulnerability scan
go test -race ./... # Race detectionStdlib Vulnerability Fixes
When govulncheck reports stdlib vulnerabilities: check fix version via vuln.go.dev, update go X.Y.Z in go.mod, run go mod tidy. Use PR branches for repos with branch protection.
Contributing: Submit improvements to https://github.com/netresearch/go-development-skill