Go for Visual Studio Code

The VS Code Go extension provides rich language support for the Go programming language.

📣 We will enable the language server (gopls) by default in the end of Jan 2021. We recommend switching to the language server now ("go.useLanguageServer": true) to confirm it works well for you. Please file a new issue if you notice bugs or missing features.

Quick Start

Welcome! 👋🏻
Whether you are new to Go or an experienced Go developer, we hope this extension fits your needs and enhances your development experience.

• Step 1. If you haven't done so already, install Go and the VS Code Go extension.
  • Go installation guide. This extension works best with Go 1.14+.
  • Manage extensions in VS Code.
• Step 2. To activate the extension, open any directory or workspace containing Go code. Once activated, the Go status bar will appear in the bottom left corner of the window and show the recognized Go version.
• Step 3. The extension depends on a set of extra command-line tools. If they are missing, the extension will show the "⚠️ Analysis Tools Missing" warning. Click the notification to complete the installation.

(Install Missing Tools)

You are ready to Go :-)    🎉🎉🎉

Please be sure to learn more about many features of this extension as well as how to customize them. Take a look at Troubleshooting and Help for further guidance.

If you are new to Go, this article provides the overview on go code organization and basic go commands. The recent Go open source live video featured VS Code Go and demonstrated how other Gophers use the features to enhance their Go development workflow.

Features

This extension provides many features, including IntelliSense, code navigation, code editing support. It also shows diagnostics as you work and provides enhanced support for testing and debugging your programs. See the full feature breakdown for more details and to learn how to tune the behavior.

(Code completion and Signature Help)

In addition to integrated editing features, the extension provides several commands for working with Go files. You can access any of these by opening the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P on Linux/Windows and Cmd+Shift+P on Mac), and then typing in the command name. See the full list of commands provided by the extension.

(Toggle Test File)

⚠️ Note: the default syntax highlighting for Go files is provided by the TextMate rule embedded in VS Code, not by this extension.

Tools

The extension uses a few command-line tools developed by the Go community. In particular, go, gopls, and dlv are used to implement build/test, language features, and debugging functionalities of this extension. See the tools documentation for a complete list of tools the extension depends on.

In order to locate the command-line tools, the extension searches $GOPATH/bin and directories specified in the PATH environment variable (or Path in Windows) with which the VS Code process has started. If the tools are not found, the extension will prompt you to install the missing tools and show the "⚠️ Analysis Tools Missing" warning in the bottom right corner. Please install them by responding to the warning notification, or by manually running the Go: Install/Update Go Tools command. The extension will run the go get command to install them.

Setting up your workspace

Go modules are how Go manages dependencies in recent versions of Go. Modules replace the GOPATH-based approach to specifying which source files are used in a given build, and they are the default build mode in go1.16+. While this extension continues to support both Go modules and GOPATH mode, we highly recommend Go development in module mode. If you are working on existing projects, please consider migrating to modules.

Unlike the traditional GOPATH mode, module mode does not require the workspace to be located under GOPATH nor to use a specific structure. A module is defined by a directory tree of Go source files with a go.mod file in the tree's root directory. Your project may involve one or more modules. If you are working with multiple modules or uncommon project layouts, you will need to configure your workspace so that the extension knows which code to load, so that features like references can work across modules. Please see the for information on supported workspace layouts.

Customization

The extension needs no configuration and should work out of the box. However, you may wish to adjust settings to customize its behavior. Below are a few commonly used settings. Please see the settings documentation for a comprehensive list of settings.

Choosing a different version of Go

The extension chooses the go command using the PATH (or Path) environment variable by default. You can configure the extension to choose a different version of go with one of the following options.

• (Preferred) Adjust your PATH or Path environment variable, and open VS Code with the adjusted environment variable, or
• Use the Go extension's "Go: Choose Go Environment" command that opens a menu to change the go version, or
• Use the "go.alternateTools" settings and specify the absolute path to the go command. "go.alternateTools": { "go": "/path/to/go/command" }

note: For historical reasons, some users configure the "go.goroot"

settings or the GOROOT environment variable to select the Go SDK location. With recent versions of Go, that's unnecessary in most cases.

Configuring the installation of command-line tools

The Go: Install/Update Tools command uses the go get command to download and install requested tools. By default, go get will install the compiled tools in one of the following directories.

• the directory the GOBIN environment variable specifies, or
• the bin directory under the first GOPATH (or "go.gopath") directory, or
• the $HOME/go/bin (or $USERPROFILE/go/bin) directory.

Some users prefer to choose a different installation location. In that case, use the "go.toolsGopath" setting.

The extension finds the required tools by their names (go, gopls, dlv, etc.). The "go.alternateTools" setting provides a way to configure the extension to use different tool location, for example a wrapper with a different name.

Using a custom linter

A commonly customized feature is the linter, which is the tool used to provide coding style feedback and suggestions. This extension supports linters such as staticcheck, golangci-lint, and revive. You can choose one of them using the "go.lintTool" setting. For customization of the linter, please consult the linter's documentation.

Note that if you are using staticcheck, you can enable it to run within gopls by setting "gopls": { "ui.diagnostic.staticcheck": true }.

Working on the Go standard library and the Go tools

When you need to work on the Go project, please follow the instruction in the Standard Library Development documentation to adjust your settings.

Ask for help

If you're having issues with this extension, please reach out to us by filing an issue or asking a question on the Gophers Slack. We hang out in the #vscode channel!

Take a look at learn.go.dev and golang.org/help for more general guidance on using Go.

Preview version

If you'd like to get early access to new features and bug fixes, you can use the nightly build of this extension. Learn how to install it in by reading the Go Nightly documentation.

Contributing

We welcome your contributions and thank you for working to improve the Go development experience in VS Code. If you would like to help work on the VS Code Go extension, please see our contribution guide. It explains how to build and run the extension locally, and describes the process of sending a contribution.

Code of Conduct

This project follows the Go Community Code of Conduct. If you encounter a conduct-related issue, please mail [email protected].

License

MIT