gofmt and formatting

Canonical guidance

• run gofmt
• accept the tool’s layout decisions
• keep style debates above the formatting layer

Use when

• reviewing code style
• setting editor defaults
• deciding whether a diff needs manual layout cleanup

Avoid

• custom spacing conventions
• vertical alignment that gofmt will immediately undo
• arguing over brace placement or indentation style

Preferred pattern

gofmt -w .

Anti-pattern

• hand-formatting code to preserve a personal visual layout

Explanation: This is tempting because manual alignment can look neat locally, but it creates noisy diffs and pointless style churn.

Why

• Go standardizes formatting so teams can spend attention on design and correctness