Golang Patterns

A comprehensive reference for idiomatic Go development that covers the language's core philosophy and practical patterns. It emphasizes Go's fundamental principles like making zero values useful, accepting interfaces while returning structs, and proper error wrapping with context. The concurrency section is especially solid, covering worker pools, errgroup coordination, and goroutine leak prevention. What I appreciate most is how it consistently shows both good and bad examples, making the reasoning clear. The interface design guidance around defining interfaces at the point of use rather than with the implementation is spot on and often overlooked by developers coming from other languages.

skills.sh installs: 9.9K
GitHub stars: 229.1K
last updated: Jul 14, 2026

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Install

$ npx -y skills add affaan-m/everything-claude-code --skill golang-patterns --agent claude-code

Installs into .claude/skills of the current project.

Files

Go Development Patterns

Idiomatic Go patterns and best practices for building robust, efficient, and maintainable applications.

When to Activate

Writing new Go code
Reviewing Go code
Refactoring existing Go code
Designing Go packages/modules

Core Principles

1. Simplicity and Clarity

Go favors simplicity over cleverness. Code should be obvious and easy to read.

// Good: Clear and direct
func GetUser(id string) (*User, error) {
    user, err := db.FindUser(id)
    if err != nil {
        return nil, fmt.Errorf("get user %s: %w", id, err)
    }
    return user, nil
}

// Bad: Overly clever
func GetUser(id string) (*User, error) {
    return func() (*User, error) {
        if u, e := db.FindUser(id); e == nil {
            return u, nil
        } else {
            return nil, e
        }
    }()
}

2. Make the Zero Value Useful

Design types so their zero value is immediately usable without initialization.

// Good: Zero value is useful
type Counter struct {
    mu    sync.Mutex
    count int // zero value is 0, ready to use
}

func (c *Counter) Inc() {
    c.mu.Lock()
    c.count++
    c.mu.Unlock()
}

SKILL.md on GitHub