Google Go Best Practices

Google guidance on robust, maintainable Go patterns for naming, imports, errors, documentation, tests, globals, strings, and interfaces.

• Author: Google
• Authority: community
• Kind: guide
• URL: https://google.github.io/styleguide/go/best-practices

What it covers

• package and interface patterns
• error and testing practices
• global state and string construction guidance

Why authoritative

Practical Google guidance for common Go patterns used to keep large codebases readable and maintainable.

Use when

• what are Google’s Go best practices here
• is this a Google-style Go best practice
• how would Google prefer this Go pattern

Keywords

• google go best practices, google readability, error flow, global state, string construction, test failures

Used by

• docs-comments
• interface-design
• package-layout
• package-and-import-semantics
• variable-shadowing
• zero-values
• error-handling
• error-wrapping
• panic-and-recover
• init-functions
• logging-slog
• subtests
• table-driven-tests
• test-helpers
• testing
• import-style
• error-strings-and-error-flow
• test-failure-messages
• global-state
• string-construction
• flags-and-cli-structure