Golang Tooling Standards

Priority: P1 (Operational)

Verification Workflow (Mandatory)

After writing or modifying Go code, run in order:

1. mcp__ide__getDiagnostics — gopls real-time errors and type warnings (requires gopls-lsp plugin)
2. go vet ./... — catch printf mismatches, unreachable code, shadowed variables
3. goimports -w . — organize imports and format in one pass
4. golangci-lint run ./... — run full linter suite (if .golangci.yml present)

Tool Overview

Tool	Purpose	When to Use
gopls	LSP: diagnostics, completion, hover	Always (IDE integration)
go vet	Static analysis — correctness bugs	After every edit
goimports	Import sorting + gofmt	Before commit
golangci-lint	Aggregated linters (errcheck, staticcheck, etc.)	CI / pre-commit
staticcheck	Advanced static analysis	Large codebases

golangci-lint Setup

Configure via .golangci.yml at repo root. Recommended linters:

• errcheck — enforce error handling
• staticcheck — bug detection beyond go vet
• govet — shadow, composites
• revive — style enforcement
• gosec — security issues

See golangci.yml example.

gopls Integration

gopls powers mcp__ide__getDiagnostics. Install:

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

Anti-Patterns

• No gofmt alone: Use goimports — it does formatting AND imports.
• No manual import sorting: Let goimports manage the order.
• No skipping go vet: Run it — catches real bugs gofmt misses.
• No broad lint disable: Fix the root cause instead of //nolint comments.

References

• golangci.yml example