Go Best Practices

Apply when writing or reviewing Go code in this codebase.

Pattern When to apply

Minimal main New binaries

Single bootstrap App wiring across modes

Ordered shutdown Long-running processes

Non-blocking fanout Channel-based event systems

Concurrency testing Any goroutine code

Layered config Multi-source configuration

Cross-platform paths File/config path resolution

Secure debug logging HTTP client instrumentation

Golden test matrices Rendering / output components

Focused linters CI pipeline setup

Read references/patterns.md for code examples.

Rules

main.go is a stub. Call cmd.Execute() and nothing else. Gate diagnostics (pprof) behind env vars.

One bootstrap path. All modes (interactive, headless, test) share the same initialization function. Two paths will drift.

Ordered shutdown. Cancel dependents before their dependencies, then run independent cleanup in parallel under a timeout context. WaitGroup the parallel phase.

Never block the sender. Non-blocking channel sends with an explicit drop policy. Log drops at debug level. Document the policy.

Test concurrency mechanically. testing/synctest for deterministic timing, goleak.VerifyNone for leak detection, dedicated regression tests for timer/channel deadlocks.

Explicit config precedence. Global → project → flags. Walk up from CWD to discover project configs, reverse so closest wins, deep-merge.

Centralize platform paths. One function per concern. Resolution order: env override → XDG → platform default → fallback.

Redact secrets in debug logs. Wrap http.RoundTripper . Filter headers matching authorization, api-key, token, secret. Gate on debug level to skip allocation in prod.

Golden tests over matrices. Cross dimensions (layout × theme × size) as parallel subtests. Sweep continuous ranges to catch off-by-one bugs.

Focused linters, not all linters. Enable what catches real bugs (bodyclose, noctx, tparallel). Disable noisy defaults. Add project-specific checks as scripts. Always -race in tests.