Go Best Practices for Production Environments

Configuration

• flags inside main

func main() {
    var (
        payload = flag.String("payload", "abc", "payload data")
        delay   = flag.Duration("delay", 1*time.Second, "write delay")
    )
    flag.Parse()
    // ...
}

Logging and telemetry

• push based telemetry is straightforward, but does not scale
• expvar with pull based telemetry scales

Testing and validation

// +build integration
 
var fooAddr = flag.String(...)
 
func TestToo(t *testing.T) {
    f, err := foo.Connect(*fooAddr)
    // ...
}

• go test -tags=integration

Interlude

• std lib based conventions scale to large group of developers

Dependency Management

• use vendor for executables
• don’t use vendor for package

Conclusion

• The ultimate best practice is to embrace simplicity

Reference

• Peter Bourgon · Go: Best Practices for Production Environments