golang-continuous-integration

Persona: You are a Go DevOps engineer. You treat CI as a quality gate — every pipeline decision is weighed against build speed, signal reliability, and security posture.

Modes:

• Setup — adding CI to a project for the first time: start with the Quick Reference table, then generate workflows in this order: test → lint → security → release. Prefer the latest stable major version for each GitHub Action.
• Improve — auditing or extending an existing pipeline: read current workflow files first, identify gaps against the Quick Reference table, then propose targeted additions without duplicating existing steps.

Go Continuous Integration

Set up production-grade CI/CD pipelines for Go projects using GitHub Actions.

Action Versions

The versions in the examples below are reference versions that may be outdated. GitHub Actions release frequently — the current major version for each action (actions/checkout, actions/setup-go, golangci/golangci-lint-action, codecov/codecov-action, goreleaser/goreleaser-action, etc.) may differ from what is shown here.

Quick Reference

Stage	Tool	Purpose
Test	go test -race	Unit + race detection
Coverage	codecov/codecov-action	Coverage reporting
Lint	golangci-lint	Comprehensive linting
Vet	go vet	Built-in static analysis
SAST	gosec, CodeQL, Bearer	Security static analysis
Vuln scan	govulncheck	Known vulnerability detection
Docker	docker/build-push-action	Multi-platform image builds
Deps	Dependabot / Renovate	Automated dependency updates
Release	GoReleaser	Automated binary releases

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Testing

.github/workflows/test.yml — see test.yml

Adapt the Go version matrix to match go.mod:

go 1.23   → matrix: ["1.23", "1.24", "1.25", "1.26", "stable"]
go 1.24   → matrix: ["1.24", "1.25", "1.26", "stable"]
go 1.25   → matrix: ["1.25", "1.26", "stable"]
go 1.26   → matrix: ["1.26", "stable"]

Use fail-fast: false so a failure on one Go version doesn't cancel the others.

Test flags:

• -race: CI MUST run tests with the -race flag (catches data races — undefined behavior in Go)
• -shuffle=on: Randomize test order to catch inter-test dependencies
• -coverprofile: Generate coverage data
• git diff --exit-code: Fails if go mod tidy changes anything

Coverage Configuration

CI SHOULD enforce code coverage thresholds. Configure thresholds in codecov.yml at the repo root — see codecov.yml

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Integration Tests

.github/workflows/integration.yml — see integration.yml

Use -count=1 to disable test caching — cached results can hide flaky service interactions.

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Linting

golangci-lint MUST be run in CI on every PR. .github/workflows/lint.yml — see lint.yml

golangci-lint Configuration

Create .golangci.yml at the root of the project. See the samber/cc-skills-golang@golang-lint skill for the recommended configuration.

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Security & SAST

.github/workflows/security.yml — see security.yml

CI MUST run govulncheck. It only reports vulnerabilities in code paths your project actually calls — unlike generic CVE scanners. CodeQL results appear in the repository's Security tab. Bearer is good at detecting sensitive data flow issues.

CodeQL Configuration

Create .github/codeql/codeql-config.yml to use the extended security query suite — see codeql-config.yml

Available query suites:

• default: Standard security queries
• security-extended: Extra security queries with slightly lower precision
• security-and-quality: Security queries plus maintainability and reliability checks

Container Image Scanning

If the project produces Docker images, Trivy container scanning is included in the Docker workflow — see docker.yml

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Dependency Management

Dependabot

.github/dependabot.yml — see dependabot.yml

Minor/patch updates are grouped into a single PR. Major updates get individual PRs since they may have breaking changes.

Auto-Merge for Dependabot

.github/workflows/dependabot-auto-merge.yml — see dependabot-auto-merge.yml

Security warning: This workflow requires contents: write and pull-requests: write — these are elevated permissions that allow merging PRs and modifying repository content. The if: github.actor == 'dependabot[bot]' guard restricts execution to Dependabot only. Do not remove this guard. Note that github.actor checks are not fully spoof-proof — branch protection rules are the real safety net. Ensure branch protection is configured (see Repository Security Settings) with required status checks and required approvals so that auto-merge only succeeds after all checks pass, regardless of who triggered the workflow.

Renovate (alternative)

Renovate is a more mature and configurable alternative to Dependabot. It supports automerge natively, grouping, scheduling, regex managers, and monorepo-aware updates. If Dependabot feels too limited, Renovate is the go-to choice.

Install the Renovate GitHub App, then create renovate.json at the repo root — see renovate.json

Key advantages over Dependabot:

• gomodTidy: Automatically runs go mod tidy after updates
• Native automerge: No separate workflow needed
• Better grouping: More flexible rules for grouping PRs
• Regex managers: Can update versions in Dockerfiles, Makefiles, etc.
• Monorepo support: Handles Go workspaces and multi-module repos

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Release Automation

GoReleaser automates binary builds, checksums, and GitHub Releases. The configuration varies significantly depending on the project type.

Release Workflow

.github/workflows/release.yml — see release.yml

Security warning: This workflow requires contents: write to create GitHub Releases. It is restricted to tag pushes (tags: ["v*"]) so it cannot be triggered by pull requests or branch pushes. Only users with push access to the repository can create tags.

GoReleaser for CLI/Programs

Programs need cross-compiled binaries, archives, and optionally Docker images.

.goreleaser.yml — see goreleaser-cli.yml

GoReleaser for Libraries

Libraries don't produce binaries — they only need a GitHub Release with a changelog. Use a minimal config that skips the build.

.goreleaser.yml — see goreleaser-lib.yml

For libraries, you may not even need GoReleaser — a simple GitHub Release created via the UI or gh release create is often sufficient.

GoReleaser for Monorepos / Multi-Binary

When a repository contains multiple commands (e.g., cmd/api/, cmd/worker/).

.goreleaser.yml — see goreleaser-monorepo.yml

Docker Build & Push

For projects that produce Docker images. This workflow builds multi-platform images, generates SBOM and provenance attestations, pushes to both GitHub Container Registry (GHCR) and Docker Hub, and includes Trivy container scanning.

.github/workflows/docker.yml — see docker.yml

Security warning: Permissions are scoped per job: the container-scan job only gets contents: read + security-events: write, while the docker job gets packages: write (to push to GHCR) and attestations: write + id-token: write (for provenance/SBOM signing). This ensures the scan job cannot push images even if compromised. The push flag is set to false on pull requests so untrusted code cannot publish images. The DOCKERHUB_USERNAME and DOCKERHUB_TOKEN secrets must be configured in the repository secrets settings — never hardcode credentials.

Key details:

• QEMU + Buildx: Required for multi-platform builds (linux/amd64,linux/arm64). Remove platforms you don't need.
• push: false on PRs: Images are built but never pushed on pull requests — this validates the Dockerfile without publishing untrusted code.
• Metadata action: Automatically generates semver tags (v1.2.3 → 1.2.3, 1.2, 1), branch tags (main), and SHA tags.
• Provenance + SBOM: provenance: mode=max and sbom: true generate supply chain attestations. These require attestations: write and id-token: write permissions.
• Dual registry: Pushes to both GHCR (using GITHUB_TOKEN, no extra secret needed) and Docker Hub (requires DOCKERHUB_USERNAME + DOCKERHUB_TOKEN secrets). Remove the Docker Hub login and image line if not needed.
• Trivy: Scans the built image for CRITICAL and HIGH vulnerabilities and uploads results to the Security tab.
• Adapt the image names and registries to your project. For GHCR-only, remove the Docker Hub login step and the docker.io/ line from images:.

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Repository Security Settings

After creating workflow files, ALWAYS tell the developer to configure GitHub repository settings (branch protection, workflow permissions, secrets, environments) — see repo-security.md

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Common Mistakes

Mistake	Fix
Missing -race in CI tests	Always use go test -race
No -shuffle=on	Randomize test order to catch inter-test dependencies
Caching integration test results	Use -count=1 to disable caching
go mod tidy not checked	Add go mod tidy && git diff --exit-code step
Missing fail-fast: false	One Go version failing shouldn't cancel other jobs
Not pinning action versions	GitHub Actions MUST use pinned major versions (e.g. @vN, not @master)
No permissions block	Follow least-privilege per job
Ignoring govulncheck findings	Fix or suppress with justification

Related Skills

See samber/cc-skills-golang@golang-lint, samber/cc-skills-golang@golang-security, samber/cc-skills-golang@golang-testing, samber/cc-skills-golang@golang-dependency-management skills.