Defer, Panic, and Recover

Canonical explanation of defer, panic, recover, and where each belongs in Go code.

• Author: Andrew Gerrand
• Authority: primary
• Kind: blog
• URL: https://go.dev/blog/defer-panic-and-recover

What it covers

• defer semantics
• panic usage boundaries
• recover placement and behavior

Why authoritative

Official Go guidance on control-flow primitives that are often misused.

Use when

• when should Go code panic vs return error
• how should defer be used in Go
• when is recover appropriate in Go

Keywords

• defer, panic, recover, cleanup, control flow

Used by

• error-handling
• panic-and-recover
• defer
• run-time-panics