• About
  • Technology Stack
• Getting Started
  • Prerequisites
  • Installation
  • Running
  • Usage
• Development
  • Pre-commit Hooks

The purpose of the Go Template is to give a starting point for new web services. In doing this, we are able to standardize what development tools and processes we recommend for more efficient development. Getting everyone in the Go world using the same things will naturally give us familiarity over time and makes it easier to identify ways in which we can improve this template and/or existing Go services.

The template includes an example of a simple coffee API that can be used as a reference point for the recommended technology stack.

Tools that are included in this template and/or recommended for developing Go services:

• HTTP web framework - echo
• Environment variable loader - godotenv
• Access token validator - go-jwt-middleware
• Database driver - pgxpool (postgres) or mongo-go-driver
• Database migration - migrate
• Data validator - validator
• Logger - zerolog
• Test assertions and mocks - testify
• Test data faking - gofakeit
• Test service containerization - testcontainer-go

Install containerization tool docker:

# Make sure to turn docker on after installation
brew install --cask docker

Install go version manager gobrew:

curl -sLk https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kevincobain2000/gobrew/master/git.io.sh | sh

Add PATH setting your shell configuration file (.bashrc or .zshrc):

export PATH="$HOME/.gobrew/current/bin:$HOME/.gobrew/bin:$PATH"
export GOROOT="$HOME/.gobrew/current/go"

Install go version:

gobrew use 1.20.4

Install pre-commit hooks:

make pc-install

Install project dependencies:

make packages

It's also recommended to install pre-commit hooks to statically analyze development work before pushing in any commits.

It's important to run these in the order as it is instructed below because the server attempts to connect to the database to run migration scripts.

Run the database:

make db

Run the server:

make server

List of available endpoints:

GET localhost:1323/api/v1/coffeeDrinks
GET localhost:1323/api/v1/coffeeDrinks?temperatureStyle=<HOT or COLD>
POST localhost:1323/api/v1/coffeeDrinks

An example of creating a coffee drink:

curl -X POST 'localhost:1323/api/v1/coffeeDrinks' \
   -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
   -d '{ "description": "Cold brew coffee is a coffee drink prepared by steeping coarse grounds in room temperature or cold water and letting it steep for at least 12 hours", "id": "4b5e8f79-134f-4054-822e-c64e3229778b", "name": "Cold Brew", "origin": "Japan", "temperatureStyle": "COLD" }'

Development tasks can be found in the Makefile. Currently available tasks are:

# Install pre-commit
make pc-install
# Run pre-commit on all files
make pc-run
# Add/remove dependencies based on imports
make packages
# Format go code
make format
# Run unit tests
make test
# Get test report of unit tests run
make test-report
# Stand up server
make server
# Stand up database
make db

These tasks standardize helpful and often used tasks so that we don't have to remember all the different tools and their commands.

Pre-commit hooks ensure that we are coding up to a standard and will also help fix some issues automatically (removing trailing whitespace, removing unused imports, etc). There are of course, issues that will have to be addressed manually and the hooks will point that out. This aligns with the concept of fail-fast as ideally we shouldn't have to wait until our code runs through the CI/CD pipeline to fail or reviewed by a colleague to be caught.

Install pre-commit hooks with the following command if you haven't already:

make pc-install

Notice that a .pre-commit-config.yaml file exists at the root (or will be created as a part of the above command if already doesn't exist). The script will use that configuration file to create a pre-commit file in .git/hooks so that whenever an attempt is made to push into a branch, the hooks will run to check if there are any errors. If errors exist, the push will fail and the errors will first have to be addressed.

After running the install pre-commit script, you can double-check that the pre-commit hooks will run as expected with the following command:

make pc-run

An error will usually occur if you don't have gocyclo and goimports installed in your $GOPATH. Both these packages can be installed with the following commands:

go install github.com/fzipp/gocyclo/cmd/gocyclo@latest
go install golang.org/x/tools/cmd/goimports@latest

It's also important to make sure to have the $GOPATH set up as well as $PATH pointing to your $GOPATH's bin in your shell profile. For example:

# .zshrc file

export GOPATH=$HOME/go
export PATH="$GOPATH/bin:$PATH"