govet

Govet, commonly referred to as go vet, is a static analysis tool in the Go programming language ecosystem. It analyzes Go source code to identify suspicious constructs that could indicate bugs or correctness problems. The tool is part of the Go toolchain and is invoked via the go vet command, often run as go vet ./... to analyze all packages in a module.

What it does: It inspects packages for patterns that are easy to miss at compile time, such as mismatches between printf-style formatting verbs and their arguments, suspicious use of interfaces or pointers, or code paths that may trigger nil pointer dereferences, dead or unreachable code, and other questionable constructs. The checks are implemented as analyzers and can be extended by third-party analyzers.

Usage: Run go vet in a module or workspace. The tool outputs warnings with file names and line numbers. If issues are found, the command exits with a nonzero status, allowing integration with CI pipelines. It is often used during development and before release, sometimes in combination with other static analysis tools like staticcheck or linters.

History and scope: go vet has been part of the Go toolchain for many years. It focuses on catching bugs that the compiler cannot detect and relies on static analysis rather than runtime execution. It is not a substitute for comprehensive testing or code review; some issues may be false positives, and it may not catch all bug classes.

See also: Go tooling, static analysis in Go, staticcheck, golangci-lint.