golang-cli-template

golang-cli-template

Golang CLI project template following best practices

Technology Choices and Reasoning

• Cobra - Most popular CLI library, pairs well with Viper. Used in large open-source Golang projects (Terraform, Kubernetes, etc).
• golangci-lint - Most popular liniting tool, that combines several linters.
• Makefile - Currently the most popular type of build system for Golang projects in open-source
• PromptUI - CLI library to provide rich interactive prompts.
• Viper - Most popular configuration library, pairs well with Cobra. Used in large open-source Golang projects (Terraform, Kubernetes, etc).

Potential Improvements

Some of these are due to Golang still being a relatively new language, and will onl

• Build system - There are several Golang-based build systems attempting to replace Makefiles. It's possible of them becomes the first-choice for building Golang projects instead of Makefiles.
• Debugging - There are plans to address as part of the language
• Dependency Management improvements
  • Separation of development dependencies vs production dependencies
  • Better way of installing development tools, like golangci-lint. The current way overwrites a locally installed version
• Git Hooks - Automatically run formatting + unit tests on commit, as they are fast in Golang