Agent Skills For Go

AI Agent Skills for writing idiomatic, production-quality Go code. 20 modular skills teach AI coding assistants Go best practices derived from:

• Google Go Style Guide
• Effective Go
• Uber Go Style Guide
• Go Wiki CodeReviewComments

Skills are tuned following agentskills.io best practices: content the agent already knows is omitted, procedural decision trees guide multi-step tasks, 48 reference files load on demand via progressive disclosure, 8 bundled scripts automate common checks, and 4 asset templates ensure consistent output.

Skills Included

| Skill | Description | |-------|-------------| | go-code-review | Systematic checklist for reviewing Go code and PR submissions | | go-concurrency | Goroutine lifecycle, channels, mutexes, parallelization, thread-safety | | go-context | Context.Context placement, cancellation, deadlines, request-scoped data | | go-control-flow | Idiomatic conditionals, loops, switch/break behavior, guard clauses | | go-data-structures | Slices, maps, arrays — allocation with new vs make, append, copying | | go-declarations | Variable/const/type declarations, var vs :=, iota enums, shadowing | | go-defensive | API boundary hardening, defer cleanup, Must functions, time handling | | go-documentation | Doc comments, package docs, godoc formatting, runnable examples | | go-error-handling | Error strategy decisions, wrapping (%v vs %w), sentinels, logging patterns | | go-functional-options | Functional options pattern for constructors with optional config | | go-functions | Function ordering, signature formatting, Printf verbs, Stringer interface | | go-generics | When to use generics, constraints, common pitfalls, type aliases | | go-interfaces | Interface design, abstractions, embedding, "accept interfaces return structs" | | go-linting | Linters, golangci-lint setup, nolint directives, CI/CD integration | | go-logging | Structured logging with slog, log levels, request-scoped context, migration | | go-naming | Naming decision flow for packages, types, functions, variables, receivers | | go-packages | Package organization, imports, package size, CLI/flag patterns | | go-performance | String optimization, capacity hints, benchmarking, strconv over fmt | | go-style-core | Formatting, nesting reduction, style principles, fallback style guide | | go-testing | Table-driven tests, subtests, test helpers, assertions, test organization |

Bundled Scripts

8 scripts automate common Go checks. All support --help, --json for structured output, and meaningful exit codes (0 = clean, 1 = issues found, 2 = error). Analysis scripts support --limit to cap output size, and destructive scripts require --force to overwrite existing files.

| Script | Skill | Purpose | |--------|-------|---------| | pre-review.sh | go-code-review | Run gofmt + go vet + golangci-lint before review | | check-naming.sh | go-naming | Detect SCREAMING_SNAKE, Get-prefixed getters, bad package names | | check-docs.sh | go-documentation | Find exported symbols missing doc comments | | check-errors.sh | go-error-handling | Catch bare returns, string comparison on errors, log-and-return | | check-interface-compliance.sh | go-interfaces | Find interfaces missing compile-time verification | | bench-compare.sh | go-performance | Run benchmarks with optional benchstat comparison | | setup-lint.sh | go-linting | Generate .golangci.yml with recommended linters | | gen-table-test.sh | go-testing | Scaffold a table-driven test file |

Quick Install

Using npx skills (Recommended)

The easiest way to install across any AI coding agent. Supports Cursor, Codex, OpenCode, Cline, GitHub Copilot, Windsurf, Roo Code, and 25+ more agents.

npx skills add cxuu/golang-skills --all

Claude Code

# Add the marketplace (one time)
/plugin marketplace add cxuu/golang-skills

# Install the skills
/plugin install golang-skills@cxuu-golang-skills

Cursor (Native Remote Rule)

1. Open Cursor Settings (Cmd+Shift+J on Mac, Ctrl+Shift+J on Windows/Linux)
2. Navigate to Rules → Add Rule → Remote Rule (Github)
3. Enter: https://github.com/cxuu/golang-skills

How It Works

These skills follow the Agent Skills open standard, which works across multiple AI coding tools. When you're writing Go code:

1. Automatic activation: The AI agent loads relevant skills based on context (e.g., go-naming when you're writing a new function)
2. Procedural guidance: Decision trees and step-by-step procedures for multi-step tasks like code review and error strategy selection
3. Progressive disclosure: Core rules load immediately; 48 reference files load on demand when specific situations arise
4. Automation: 8 bundled scripts handle repetitive checks so the agent focuses on higher-level guidance
5. Conditional cross-references: Skills link to each other with "when" conditions to avoid unnecessary context loading

Project Structure

skills/
├── go-*/
│   ├── SKILL.md          # Core rules (< 225 lines each)
│   ├── references/       # Detailed guidance, loaded on demand
│   ├── scripts/          # Automation scripts (8 skills)
│   └── assets/           # Output templates (4 skills)
├── evals/
│   ├── evals.json        # 51 trigger evals + 15 quality evals
│   └── files/            # Sample Go files for quality evals
└── source/               # Original style guide sources

License

This project is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. See the LICENSE file for details.