Standard Go Project Layout

This is a basic layout for Go application projects. It represents the most common directory structure with a number of small enhancements along with several supporting directories common to any real world application.

Clone the repository, keep what you need and delete everything else!

Go Directories

• /cmd

Main applications for this project.

The directory name for each application should match the name of the executable you want to have (e.g., /cmd/myapp).

Don’t put a lot of code in the application directory unless you think that code can be imported and used in other projects. If this is the case then the code should live in the /pkg directory.

It’s common to have a small main function that imports and invokes the code from the /internal and /pkg directories.

• /internal

Private application and library code.

Put your actual application code in the /internal/app directory (e.g., /internal/app/myapp) and the code shared by those apps in the /internal/pkg directory (e.g., /internal/pkg/myprivlib).

• /pkg

Library code that’s safe to use by external applications (e.g., /pkg/mypubliclib).

Other projects will import these libraries expecting them to work, so think twice before you put something here :-)

• /vendor

Application dependencies (managed manually or by your favorite dependency management tool).

Don’t commit your application dependencies if you are building a library.

Service Application Directories

• /api

OpenAPI/Swagger specs, JSON schema files, protocol definition files.

Web Application Directories

• /web

Web application specific components: static web assets, server side templates and SPAs.

Common Application Directories

• /configs

Configuration file templates or default configs.

Put your confd or consule-template template files here.

• /init

System init (systemd, upstart, sysv) and process manager/supervisor (runit, supervisord) configs.

• /scripts

Scripts to perform various build, install, analysis, etc operations.

These scripts keep the root level Makefile small and simple.

• /build

Packaging and Continous Integration.

Put your cloud (AMI), container (Docker), OS (deb, rpm, pkg) package configurations and scripts in the /build/package directory.

Put your CI (travis, circle, drone) configurations and scripts in the /build/ci directory.

• /deployments

IaaS, PaaS, system and container orchestration deployment configurations and templates (docker-compose, kubernetes/helm, mesos, terraform, bosh).

• /test

Additional external test apps and test data.

Other Directories

• /docs

Design and user documents (in addition to your godoc generated documentation).

• /tools

Supporting tools for this project. Note that these tools can import code from the /pkg and /internal directories.

• /examples

Examples for your applications and/or public libraries.

• /third_party

External helper tools, forked code and other 3rd party utilities (e.g., Swagger UI).

• /githooks

Git hooks.

• /assets

Other assets to go along with your repository.

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