Toolchain & Setup

Install Go, lay out a project, and wire your editor. Quick reference for everything in the toolchain you'll touch in this course.

Go Toolchain

Install from go.dev/dl or your package manager. Verify:

go version    # go1.22+ recommended
which go      # should be in $PATH

On Void Linux:

sudo xbps-install -S go

Module System

go mod init github.com/you/project   # create go.mod (do this first in every project)
go mod tidy                           # add missing deps, remove unused ones
go get github.com/spf13/cobra@latest  # add a dependency

go.mod tracks dependencies. go.sum locks checksums. Both get committed to git.

Project Layout

myproject/
├── go.mod              # module definition + dependencies
├── go.sum              # dependency checksums (auto-generated)
├── main.go             # entry point (small projects)
├── cmd/                # entry points (multi-binary projects)
│   └── myapp/
│       └── main.go
├── internal/           # private packages — can't be imported by other modules
│   ├── config/
│   └── server/
├── pkg/                # public packages — can be imported (optional, some projects skip this)
└── Makefile            # build/test/lint shortcuts

Rules of thumb:

• Start flat (everything in main.go) until it gets painful
• Move code to internal/ when you have multiple packages that shouldn't be imported externally
• Only use pkg/ when you intentionally want other projects to import your library code
• One main.go per binary, under cmd/ if you have multiple

Editor Setup

Helix

Helix has built-in LSP support. Just install gopls:

go install golang.org/x/tools/gopls@latest

Helix auto-detects gopls for .go files. Verify in ~/.config/helix/languages.toml:

[[language]]
name = "go"
auto-format = true
formatter = { command = "goimports", args = ["-local", "github.com/you"] }

Install goimports for auto-organizing imports:

go install golang.org/x/tools/cmd/goimports@latest

Neovim

If using nvim-lspconfig:

require('lspconfig').gopls.setup{}

For format-on-save, add to your config:

vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd("BufWritePre", {
    pattern = "*.go",
    callback = function()
        vim.lsp.buf.format({ async = false })
    end,
})

VS Code

Install the official Go extension by the Go team. It handles gopls, formatting, testing, and debugging out of the box.