golang-error-handling

Provides a comprehensive guide for writing production-ready Golang tests. Covers table-driven tests, test suites with testify, mocks, unit tests, integration tests, benchmarks, code coverage, parallel tests, fuzzing, fixtures, goroutine leak detection with goleak, snapshot testing, memory leaks, CI with GitHub Actions, and idiomatic naming conventions. Use this whenever writing tests, asking about testing patterns or setting up CI for Go projects. Essential for ANY test-related conversation in Go.

Golang struct and interface design patterns — composition, embedding, type assertions, type switches, interface segregation, dependency injection via interfaces, struct field tags, and pointer vs value receivers. Use this skill when designing Go types, defining or implementing interfaces, embedding structs or interfaces, writing type assertions or type switches, adding struct field tags for JSON/YAML/DB serialization, or choosing between pointer and value receivers. Also use when the user asks about "accept interfaces, return structs", compile-time interface checks, or composing small interfaces into larger ones.

Comprehensive guide to stretchr/testify for Golang testing. Covers assert, require, mock, and suite packages in depth. Use whenever writing tests with testify, creating mocks, setting up test suites, or choosing between assert and require. Essential for testify assertions, mock expectations, argument matchers, call verification, suite lifecycle, and advanced patterns like Eventually, JSONEq, and custom matchers. Trigger on any Go test file importing testify.

Security best practices and vulnerability prevention for Golang. Covers injection (SQL, command, XSS), cryptography, filesystem safety, network security, cookies, secrets management, memory safety, and logging. Apply when writing, reviewing, or auditing Go code for security, or when working on any risky code involving crypto, I/O, secrets management, user input handling, or authentication. Includes configuration of security tools.

Defensive Golang coding to prevent panics, silent data corruption, and subtle runtime bugs. Use whenever writing or reviewing Go code that involves nil-prone types (pointers, interfaces, maps, slices, channels), numeric conversions, resource lifecycle (defer in loops), or defensive copying. Also triggers on questions about nil panics, append aliasing, map concurrent access, float comparison, or zero-value design.

Golang performance optimization patterns and methodology - if X bottleneck, then apply Y. Covers allocation reduction, CPU efficiency, memory layout, GC tuning, pooling, caching, and hot-path optimization. Use when profiling or benchmarks have identified a bottleneck and you need the right optimization pattern to fix it. Also use when performing performance code review to suggest improvements or benchmarks that could help identify quick performance gains. Not for measurement methodology (see golang-benchmark skill) or debugging workflow (see golang-troubleshooting skill).

Go (Golang) naming conventions — covers packages, constructors, structs, interfaces, constants, enums, errors, booleans, receivers, getters/setters, functional options, acronyms, test functions, and subtest names. Use this skill when writing new Go code, reviewing or refactoring, choosing between naming alternatives (New vs NewTypeName, isConnected vs connected, ErrNotFound vs NotFoundError, StatusReady vs StatusUnknown at iota 0), debating Go package names (utils/helpers anti-patterns), or asking about Go naming best practices. Also trigger when the user mentions MixedCaps vs snake_case, ALL_CAPS constants, Get-prefix on getters, or error string casing. Do NOT use for general Go implementation questions that don't involve naming decisions.

Comprehensive documentation guide for Golang projects, covering godoc comments, README, CONTRIBUTING, CHANGELOG, Go Playground, Example tests, API docs, and llms.txt. Use when writing or reviewing doc comments, documentation, adding code examples, setting up doc sites, or discussing documentation best practices. Triggers for both libraries and applications/CLIs.

Idiomatic Golang design patterns — functional options, constructors, error flow and cascading, resource management and lifecycle, graceful shutdown, resilience, architecture, dependency injection, data handling, and streaming. Apply when designing Go APIs, structuring applications, choosing between patterns, making design decisions, architectural choices, or production hardening.

Golang data structures — slices (internals, capacity growth, preallocation, slices package), maps (internals, hash buckets, maps package), arrays, container/list/heap/ring, strings.Builder vs bytes.Buffer, generic collections, pointers (unsafe.Pointer, weak.Pointer), and copy semantics. Use when choosing or optimizing Go data structures, implementing generic containers, using container/ packages, unsafe or weak pointers, or questioning slice/map internals.

Idiomatic context.Context usage in Golang — creation, propagation, cancellation, timeouts, deadlines, context values, and cross-service tracing. Apply when working with context.Context in any Go code.

Golang concurrency patterns. Use when writing or reviewing concurrent Go code involving goroutines, channels, select, locks, sync primitives, errgroup, singleflight, worker pools, or fan-out/fan-in pipelines. Also triggers when you detect goroutine leaks, race conditions, channel ownership issues, or need to choose between channels and mutexes.