Go Modules Reference

Introduction

Modules are how Go manages dependencies.

This document is a detailed reference manual for Go’s module system. For an introduction to creating Go projects, see How to Write Go Code. For information on using modules, migrating projects to modules, and other topics, see the blog series starting with Using Go Modules.

Modules, packages, and versions

A module is a collection of packages that are released, versioned, and distributed together. Modules may be downloaded directly from version control repositories or from module proxy servers.

A module is identified by a module path, which is declared in a go.mod file, together with information about the module’s dependencies. The module root directory is the directory that contains the go.mod file. The main module is the module containing the directory where the go command is invoked.

Each package within a module is a collection of source files in the same directory that are compiled together. A package path is the module path joined with the subdirectory containing the package (relative to the module root). For example, the module "golang.org/x/net" contains a package in the directory "html". That package’s path is "golang.org/x/net/html".

Module paths

A module path is the canonical name for a module, declared with the module directive in the module’s go.mod file. A module’s path is the prefix for package paths within the module.

A module path should describe both what the module does and where to find it. Typically, a module path consists of a repository root path, a directory within the repository (usually empty), and a major version suffix (only for major version 2 or higher).

If a module might be depended on by other modules, these rules must be followed so that the go command can find and download the module. There are also several lexical restrictions on characters allowed in module paths.

A module that will never be fetched as a dependency of any other module may use any valid package path for its module path, but must take care not to collide with paths that may be used by the module’s dependencies or the Go standard library. The Go standard library uses package paths that do not contain a dot in the first path element, and the go command does not attempt to resolve such paths from network servers. The paths example and test are reserved for users: they will not be used in the standard library and are suitable for use in self-contained modules, such as those defined in tutorials or example code or created and manipulated as part of a test.

Versions

A version identifies an immutable snapshot of a module, which may be either a release or a pre-release. Each version starts with the letter v, followed by a semantic version. See Semantic Versioning 2.0.0 for details on how versions are formatted, interpreted, and compared.

To summarize, a semantic version consists of three non-negative integers (the major, minor, and patch versions, from left to right) separated by dots. The patch version may be followed by an optional pre-release string starting with a hyphen. The pre-release string or patch version may be followed by a build metadata string starting with a plus. For example, v0.0.0, v1.12.134, v8.0.5-pre, and v2.0.9+meta are valid versions.

Each part of a version indicates whether the version is stable and whether it is compatible with previous versions.

A version is considered unstable if its major version is 0 or it has a pre-release suffix. Unstable versions are not subject to compatibility requirements. For example, v0.2.0 may not be compatible with v0.1.0, and v1.5.0-beta may not be compatible with v1.5.0.

Go may access modules in version control systems using tags, branches, or revisions that don’t follow these conventions. However, within the main module, the go command will automatically convert revision names that don’t follow this standard into canonical versions. The go command will also remove build metadata suffixes (except for +incompatible) as part of this process. This may result in a pseudo-version, a pre-release version that encodes a revision identifier (such as a Git commit hash) and a timestamp from a version control system. For example, the command go get golang.org/x/net@daa7c041 will convert the commit hash daa7c041 into the pseudo-version v0.0.0-20191109021931-daa7c04131f5. Canonical versions are required outside the main module, and the go command will report an error if a non-canonical version like master appears in a go.mod file.

Pseudo-versions

A pseudo-version is a specially formatted pre-release version that encodes information about a specific revision in a version control repository. For example, v0.0.0-20191109021931-daa7c04131f5 is a pseudo-version.

Pseudo-versions may refer to revisions for which no semantic version tags are available. They may be used to test commits before creating version tags, for example, on a development branch.

Each pseudo-version has three parts:

Each pseudo-version may be in one of three forms, depending on the base version. These forms ensure that a pseudo-version compares higher than its base version, but lower than the next tagged version.

More than one pseudo-version may refer to the same commit by using different base versions. This happens naturally when a lower version is tagged after a pseudo-version is written.

These forms give pseudo-versions two useful properties:

The go command performs several checks to ensure that module authors have control over how pseudo-versions are compared with other versions and that pseudo-versions refer to revisions that are actually part of a module’s commit history.

Pseudo-versions never need to be typed by hand. Many commands accept a commit hash or a branch name and will translate it into a pseudo-version (or tagged version if available) automatically. For example:

go get example.com/mod@master
go list -m -json example.com/mod@abcd1234

Major version suffixes

Starting with major version 2, module paths must have a major version suffix like /v2 that matches the major version. For example, if a module has the path example.com/mod at v1.0.0, it must have the path example.com/mod/v2 at version v2.0.0.

Major version suffixes implement the import compatibility rule:

If an old package and a new package have the same import path, the new package must be backwards compatible with the old package.

By definition, packages in a new major version of a module are not backwards compatible with the corresponding packages in the previous major version. Consequently, starting with v2, packages need new import paths. This is accomplished by adding a major version suffix to the module path. Since the module path is a prefix of the import path for each package within the module, adding the major version suffix to the module path provides a distinct import path for each incompatible version.

Major version suffixes are not allowed at major versions v0 or v1. There is no need to change the module path between v0 and v1 because v0 versions are unstable and have no compatibility guarantee. Additionally, for most modules, v1 is backwards compatible with the last v0 version; a v1 version acts as a commitment to compatibility, rather than an indication of incompatible changes compared with v0.

As a special case, modules paths starting with gopkg.in/ must always have a major version suffix, even at v0 and v1. The suffix must start with a dot rather than a slash (for example, gopkg.in/yaml.v2).

Major version suffixes let multiple major versions of a module coexist in the same build. This may be necessary due to a diamond dependency problem. Ordinarily, if a module is required at two different versions by transitive dependencies, the higher version will be used. However, if the two versions are incompatible, neither version will satisfy all clients. Since incompatible versions must have different major version numbers, they must also have different module paths due to major version suffixes. This resolves the conflict: modules with distinct suffixes are treated as separate modules, and their packages—even packages in same subdirectory relative to their module roots—are distinct.

Many Go projects released versions at v2 or higher without using a major version suffix before migrating to modules (perhaps before modules were even introduced). These versions are annotated with a +incompatible build tag (for example, v2.0.0+incompatible). See Compatibility with non-module repositories for more information.

Resolving a package to a module

When the go command loads a package using a package path, it needs to determine which module provides the package.

The go command starts by searching the build list for modules with paths that are prefixes of the package path. For example, if the package example.com/a/b is imported, and the module example.com/a is in the build list, the go command will check whether example.com/a contains the package, in the directory b. At least one file with the .go extension must be present in a directory for it to be considered a package. Build constraints are not applied for this purpose. If exactly one module in the build list provides the package, that module is used. If no modules provide the package or if two or more modules provide the package, the go command reports an error. The -mod=mod flag instructs the go command to attempt to find new modules providing missing packages and to update go.mod and go.sum. The go get and go mod tidy commands do this automatically.

When the go command looks up a new module for a package path, it checks the GOPROXY environment variable, which is a comma-separated list of proxy URLs or the keywords direct or off. A proxy URL indicates the go command should contact a module proxy using the GOPROXY protocol. direct indicates that the go command should communicate with a version control system. off indicates that no communication should be attempted. The GOPRIVATE and GONOPROXY environment variables can also be used to control this behavior.

For each entry in the GOPROXY list, the go command requests the latest version of each module path that might provide the package (that is, each prefix of the package path). For each successfully requested module path, the go command will download the module at the latest version and check whether the module contains the requested package. If one or more modules contain the requested package, the module with the longest path is used. If one or more modules are found but none contain the requested package, an error is reported. If no modules are found, the go command tries the next entry in the GOPROXY list. If no entries are left, an error is reported.

For example, suppose the go command is looking for a module that provides the package golang.org/x/net/html, and GOPROXY is set to https://corp.example.com,https://proxy.golang.org. The go command may make the following requests:

After a suitable module has been found, the go command will add a new requirement with the new module’s path and version to the main module’s go.mod file. This ensures that when the same package is loaded in the future, the same module will be used at the same version. If the resolved package is not imported by a package in the main module, the new requirement will have an // indirect comment.

go.mod files

A module is defined by a UTF-8 encoded text file named go.mod in its root directory. The go.mod file is line-oriented. Each line holds a single directive, made up of a keyword followed by arguments. For example:

module example.com/my/thing

go 1.12

require example.com/other/thing v1.0.2
require example.com/new/thing/v2 v2.3.4
exclude example.com/old/thing v1.2.3
replace example.com/bad/thing v1.4.5 => example.com/good/thing v1.4.5
retract [v1.9.0, v1.9.5]

The leading keyword can be factored out of adjacent lines to create a block, like in Go imports.

require (
    example.com/new/thing/v2 v2.3.4
    example.com/old/thing v1.2.3
)

The go.mod file is designed to be human readable and machine writable. The go command provides several subcommands that change go.mod files. For example, go get can upgrade or downgrade specific dependencies. Commands that load the module graph will automatically update go.mod when needed. go mod edit can perform low-level edits. The golang.org/x/mod/modfile package can be used by Go programs to make the same changes programmatically.

A go.mod file is required for the main module, and for any replacement module specified with a local file path. However, a module that lacks an explicit go.mod file may still be required as a dependency, or used as a replacement specified with a module path and version; see Compatibility with non-module repositories.

Lexical elements

When a go.mod file is parsed, its content is broken into a sequence of tokens. There are several kinds of tokens: whitespace, comments, punctuation, keywords, identifiers, and strings.

White space consists of spaces (U+0020), tabs (U+0009), carriage returns (U+000D), and newlines (U+000A). White space characters other than newlines have no effect except to separate tokens that would otherwise be combined. Newlines are significant tokens.

Comments start with // and run to the end of a line. /* */ comments are not allowed.

Punctuation tokens include (, ), and =>.

Keywords distinguish different kinds of directives in a go.mod file. Allowed keywords are module, go, require, replace, exclude, and retract.

Identifiers are sequences of non-whitespace characters, such as module paths or semantic versions.

Strings are quoted sequences of characters. There are two kinds of strings: interpreted strings beginning and ending with quotation marks (", U+0022) and raw strings beginning and ending with grave accents (`, U+0060). Interpreted strings may contain escape sequences consisting of a backslash (\, U+005C) followed by another character. An escaped quotation mark (\") does not terminate an interpreted string. The unquoted value of an interpreted string is the sequence of characters between quotation marks with each escape sequence replaced by the character following the backslash (for example, \" is replaced by ", \n is replaced by n). In contrast, the unquoted value of a raw string is simply the sequence of characters between grave accents; backslashes have no special meaning within raw strings.

Identifiers and strings are interchangeable in the go.mod grammar.

Module paths and versions

Most identifiers and strings in a go.mod file are either module paths or versions.

A module path must satisfy the following requirements:

If the module path appears in a require directive and is not replaced, or if the module paths appears on the right side of a replace directive, the go command may need to download modules with that path, and some additional requirements must be satisfied.

Versions in go.mod files may be canonical or non-canonical.

A canonical version starts with the letter v, followed by a semantic version following the Semantic Versioning 2.0.0 specification. See Versions for more information.

Most other identifiers and strings may be used as non-canonical versions, though there are some restrictions to avoid problems with file systems, repositories, and module proxies. Non-canonical versions are only allowed in the main module’s go.mod file. The go command will attempt to replace each non-canonical version with an equivalent canonical version when it automatically updates the go.mod file.

In places where a module path is associated with a version (as in require, replace, and exclude directives), the final path element must be consistent with the version. See Major version suffixes.

Grammar

go.mod syntax is specified below using Extended Backus-Naur Form (EBNF). See the Notation section in the Go Language Specification for details on EBNF syntax.

GoMod = { Directive } .
Directive = ModuleDirective |
            GoDirective |
            ToolDirective |
            RequireDirective |
            ExcludeDirective |
            ReplaceDirective |
            RetractDirective .

Newlines, identifiers, and strings are denoted with newline, ident, and string, respectively.

Module paths and versions are denoted with ModulePath and Version.

ModulePath = ident | string . /* see restrictions above */
Version = ident | string .    /* see restrictions above */

module directive

A module directive defines the main module’s path. A go.mod file must contain exactly one module directive.

ModuleDirective = "module" ( ModulePath | "(" newline ModulePath newline ")" ) newline .

Example:

module golang.org/x/net

Deprecation

A module can be marked as deprecated in a block of comments containing the string Deprecated: (case-sensitive) at the beginning of a paragraph. The deprecation message starts after the colon and runs to the end of the paragraph. The comments may appear immediately before the module directive or afterward on the same line.

Example:

// Deprecated: use example.com/mod/v2 instead.
module example.com/mod

Since Go 1.17, go list -m -u checks for information on all deprecated modules in the build list. go get checks for deprecated modules needed to build packages named on the command line.

When the go command retrieves deprecation information for a module, it loads the go.mod file from the version matching the @latest version query without considering retractions or exclusions. The go command loads the list of retracted versions from the same go.mod file.

To deprecate a module, an author may add a // Deprecated: comment and tag a new release. The author may change or remove the deprecation message in a higher release.

A deprecation applies to all minor versions of a module. Major versions higher than v2 are considered separate modules for this purpose, since their major version suffixes give them distinct module paths.

Deprecation messages are intended to inform users that the module is no longer supported and to provide migration instructions, for example, to the latest major version. Individual minor and patch versions cannot be deprecated; retract may be more appropriate for that.

go directive

A go directive indicates that a module was written assuming the semantics of a given version of Go. The version must be a valid Go version, such as 1.9, 1.14, or 1.21rc1.

The go directive sets the minimum version of Go required to use this module. Before Go 1.21, the directive was advisory only; now it is a mandatory requirement: Go toolchains refuse to use modules declaring newer Go versions.

The go directive is an input into selecting which Go toolchain to run. See “Go toolchains” for details.

The go directive affects use of new language features:

The go directive also affects the behavior of the go command:

A go.mod file may contain at most one go directive. Most commands will add a go directive with the current Go version if one is not present.

If the go directive is missing, go 1.16 is assumed.

GoDirective = "go" GoVersion newline .
GoVersion = string | ident .  /* valid release version; see above */

Example:

go 1.14

toolchain directive

A toolchain directive declares a suggested Go toolchain to use with a module. The suggested Go toolchain’s version cannot be less than the required Go version declared in the go directive. The toolchain directive only has an effect when the module is the main module and the default toolchain’s version is less than the suggested toolchain’s version.

For reproducibility, the go command writes its own toolchain name in a toolchain line any time it is updating the go version in the go.mod file (usually during go get).

For details, see “Go toolchains”.

ToolchainDirective = "toolchain" ToolchainName newline .
ToolchainName = string | ident .  /* valid toolchain name; see “Go toolchains” */

Example:

toolchain go1.21.0

godebug directive

A godebug directive declares a single GODEBUG setting to apply when this module is the main module. There can be more than one such line, and they can be factored. It is an error for the main module to name a GODEBUG key that does not exist. The effect of godebug key=value is as if every main package being compiled contained a source file that listed //go:debug key=value.

GodebugDirective = "godebug" ( GodebugSpec | "(" newline { GodebugSpec } ")" newline ) .
GodebugSpec = GodebugKey "=" GodebugValue newline.
GodebugKey = GodebugChar { GodebugChar }.
GodebugValue = GodebugChar { GodebugChar }.
GodebugChar = any non-space character except , " ` ' (comma and quotes).

Example:

godebug default=go1.21
godebug (
    panicnil=1
    asynctimerchan=0
)

require directive

A require directive declares a minimum required version of a given module dependency. For each required module version, the go command loads the go.mod file for that version and incorporates the requirements from that file. Once all requirements have been loaded, the go command resolves them using minimal version selection (MVS) to produce the build list.

The go command automatically adds // indirect comments for some requirements. An // indirect comment indicates that no package from the required module is directly imported by any package in the main module.

If the go directive specifies go 1.16 or lower, the go command adds an indirect requirement when the selected version of a module is higher than what is already implied (transitively) by the main module’s other dependencies. That may occur because of an explicit upgrade (go get -u ./...), removal of some other dependency that previously imposed the requirement (go mod tidy), or a dependency that imports a package without a corresponding requirement in its own go.mod file (such as a dependency that lacks a go.mod file altogether).

At go 1.17 and above, the go command adds an indirect requirement for each module that provides any package imported (even indirectly) by a package or test in the main module or passed as an argument to go get. These more comprehensive requirements enable module graph pruning and lazy module loading.

RequireDirective = "require" ( RequireSpec | "(" newline { RequireSpec } ")" newline ) .
RequireSpec = ModulePath Version newline .

Example:

require golang.org/x/net v1.2.3

require (
    golang.org/x/crypto v1.4.5 // indirect
    golang.org/x/text v1.6.7
)

tool directive

A tool directive adds a package as a dependency of the current module. It also makes it available to run with go tool when the current working directory is within this module, or within a workspace that contains this module.

If the tool package is not in the current module, a require directive must be present that specifies the version of the tool to use.

The tool meta-pattern resolves to the list of tools defined in the current module’s go.mod, or in workspace mode to the union of all tools defined in all modules in the workspace.

ToolDirective = "tool" ( ToolSpec | "(" newline { ToolSpec } ")" newline ) .
ToolSpec = ModulePath newline .

Example:

tool golang.org/x/tools/cmd/stringer

tool (
    example.com/module/cmd/a
    example.com/module/cmd/b
)

exclude directive

An exclude directive prevents a module version from being loaded by the go command.

Since Go 1.16, if a version referenced by a require directive in any go.mod file is excluded by an exclude directive in the main module’s go.mod file, the requirement is ignored. This may cause commands like go get and go mod tidy to add new requirements on higher versions to go.mod, with an // indirect comment if appropriate.

Before Go 1.16, if an excluded version was referenced by a require directive, the go command listed available versions for the module (as shown with go list -m -versions) and loaded the next higher non-excluded version instead. This could result in non-deterministic version selection, since the next higher version could change over time. Both release and pre-release versions were considered for this purpose, but pseudo-versions were not. If there were no higher versions, the go command reported an error.

exclude directives only apply in the main module’s go.mod file and are ignored in other modules. See Minimal version selection for details.

ExcludeDirective = "exclude" ( ExcludeSpec | "(" newline { ExcludeSpec } ")" newline ) .
ExcludeSpec = ModulePath Version newline .

Example:

exclude golang.org/x/net v1.2.3

exclude (
    golang.org/x/crypto v1.4.5
    golang.org/x/text v1.6.7
)

replace directive

A replace directive replaces the contents of a specific version of a module, or all versions of a module, with contents found elsewhere. The replacement may be specified with either another module path and version, or a platform-specific file path.

If a version is present on the left side of the arrow (=>), only that specific version of the module is replaced; other versions will be accessed normally. If the left version is omitted, all versions of the module are replaced.

If the path on the right side of the arrow is an absolute or relative path (beginning with ./ or ../), it is interpreted as the local file path to the replacement module root directory, which must contain a go.mod file. The replacement version must be omitted in this case.

If the path on the right side is not a local path, it must be a valid module path. In this case, a version is required. The same module version must not also appear in the build list.

Regardless of whether a replacement is specified with a local path or module path, if the replacement module has a go.mod file, its module directive must match the module path it replaces.

replace directives only apply in the main module’s go.mod file and are ignored in other modules. See Minimal version selection for details.

If there are multiple main modules, all main modules’ go.mod files apply. Conflicting replace directives across main modules are disallowed, and must be removed or overridden in a replace in the go.work file.

Note that a replace directive alone does not add a module to the module graph. A require directive that refers to a replaced module version is also needed, either in the main module’s go.mod file or a dependency’s go.mod file. A replace directive has no effect if the module version on the left side is not required.

ReplaceDirective = "replace" ( ReplaceSpec | "(" newline { ReplaceSpec } ")" newline ) .
ReplaceSpec = ModulePath [ Version ] "=>" FilePath newline
            | ModulePath [ Version ] "=>" ModulePath Version newline .
FilePath = /* platform-specific relative or absolute file path */

Example:

replace golang.org/x/net v1.2.3 => example.com/fork/net v1.4.5

replace (
    golang.org/x/net v1.2.3 => example.com/fork/net v1.4.5
    golang.org/x/net => example.com/fork/net v1.4.5
    golang.org/x/net v1.2.3 => ./fork/net
    golang.org/x/net => ./fork/net
)

retract directive

A retract directive indicates that a version or range of versions of the module defined by go.mod should not be depended upon. A retract directive is useful when a version was published prematurely or a severe problem was discovered after the version was published. Retracted versions should remain available in version control repositories and on module proxies to ensure that builds that depend on them are not broken. The word retract is borrowed from academic literature: a retracted research paper is still available, but it has problems and should not be the basis of future work.

When a module version is retracted, users will not upgrade to it automatically using go get, go mod tidy, or other commands. Builds that depend on retracted versions should continue to work, but users will be notified of retractions when they check for updates with go list -m -u or update a related module with go get.

To retract a version, a module author should add a retract directive to go.mod, then publish a new version containing that directive. The new version must be higher than other release or pre-release versions; that is, the @latest version query should resolve to the new version before retractions are considered. The go command loads and applies retractions from the version shown by go list -m -retracted $modpath@latest (where $modpath is the module path).

Retracted versions are hidden from the version list printed by go list -m -versions unless the -retracted flag is used. Retracted versions are excluded when resolving version queries like @>=v1.2.3 or @latest.

A version containing retractions may retract itself. If the highest release or pre-release version of a module retracts itself, the @latest query resolves to a lower version after retracted versions are excluded.

As an example, consider a case where the author of module example.com/m publishes version v1.0.0 accidentally. To prevent users from upgrading to v1.0.0, the author can add two retract directives to go.mod, then tag v1.0.1 with the retractions.

retract (
    v1.0.0 // Published accidentally.
    v1.0.1 // Contains retractions only.
)

When a user runs go get example.com/m@latest, the go command reads retractions from v1.0.1, which is now the highest version. Both v1.0.0 and v1.0.1 are retracted, so the go command will upgrade (or downgrade!) to the next highest version, perhaps v0.9.5.

retract directives may be written with either a single version (like v1.0.0) or with a closed interval of versions with an upper and lower bound, delimited by [ and ] (like [v1.1.0, v1.2.0]). A single version is equivalent to an interval where the upper and lower bound are the same. Like other directives, multiple retract directives may be grouped together in a block delimited by ( at the end of a line and ) on its own line.

Each retract directive should have a comment explaining the rationale for the retraction, though this is not mandatory. The go command may display rationale comments in warnings about retracted versions and in go list output. A rationale comment may be written immediately above a retract directive (without a blank line in between) or afterward on the same line. If a comment appears above a block, it applies to all retract directives within the block that don’t have their own comments. A rationale comment may span multiple lines.

RetractDirective = "retract" ( RetractSpec | "(" newline { RetractSpec } ")" newline ) .
RetractSpec = ( Version | "[" Version "," Version "]" ) newline .

Examples:

retract v1.0.0
retract [v1.0.0, v1.9.9]
retract (
    v1.0.0
    [v1.0.0, v1.9.9]
)

retract [v0.0.0, v1.0.1] // assuming v1.0.1 contains this retraction.

retract [v0.0.0-0, v0.15.2]  // assuming v0.15.2 contains this retraction.

The retract directive was added in Go 1.16. Go 1.15 and lower will report an error if a retract directive is written in the main module’s go.mod file and will ignore retract directives in go.mod files of dependencies.

Automatic updates

Most commands report an error if go.mod is missing information or doesn’t accurately reflect reality. The go get and go mod tidy commands may be used to fix most of these problems. Additionally, the -mod=mod flag may be used with most module-aware commands (go build, go test, and so on) to instruct the go command to fix problems in go.mod and go.sum automatically.

For example, consider this go.mod file:

module example.com/M

go 1.16

require (
    example.com/A v1
    example.com/B v1.0.0
    example.com/C v1.0.0
    example.com/D v1.2.3
    example.com/E dev
)

exclude example.com/D v1.2.3

The update triggered with -mod=mod rewrites non-canonical version identifiers to canonical semver form, so example.com/A’s v1 becomes v1.0.0, and example.com/E’s dev becomes the pseudo-version for the latest commit on the dev branch, perhaps v0.0.0-20180523231146-b3f5c0f6e5f1.

The update modifies requirements to respect exclusions, so the requirement on the excluded example.com/D v1.2.3 is updated to use the next available version of example.com/D, perhaps v1.2.4 or v1.3.0.

The update removes redundant or misleading requirements. For example, if example.com/A v1.0.0 itself requires example.com/B v1.2.0 and example.com/C v1.0.0, then go.mod’s requirement of example.com/B v1.0.0 is misleading (superseded by example.com/A’s need for v1.2.0), and its requirement of example.com/C v1.0.0 is redundant (implied by example.com/A’s need for the same version), so both will be removed. If the main module contains packages that directly import packages from example.com/B or example.com/C, then the requirements will be kept but updated to the actual versions being used.

Finally, the update reformats the go.mod in a canonical formatting, so that future mechanical changes will result in minimal diffs. The go command will not update go.mod if only formatting changes are needed.

Because the module graph defines the meaning of import statements, any commands that load packages also use go.mod and can therefore update it, including go build, go get, go install, go list, go test, go mod tidy.

In Go 1.15 and lower, the -mod=mod flag was enabled by default, so updates were performed automatically. Since Go 1.16, the go command acts as if -mod=readonly were set instead: if any changes to go.mod are needed, the go command reports an error and suggests a fix.

Minimal version selection (MVS)

Go uses an algorithm called Minimal version selection (MVS) to select a set of module versions to use when building packages. MVS is described in detail in Minimal Version Selection by Russ Cox.

Conceptually, MVS operates on a directed graph of modules, specified with go.mod files. Each vertex in the graph represents a module version. Each edge represents a minimum required version of a dependency, specified using a require directive. The graph may be modified by exclude and replace directives in the go.mod file(s) of the main module(s) and by replace directives in the go.work file.

MVS produces the build list as output, the list of module versions used for a build.

MVS starts at the main modules (special vertices in the graph that have no version) and traverses the graph, tracking the highest required version of each module. At the end of the traversal, the highest required versions comprise the build list: they are the minimum versions that satisfy all requirements.

The build list may be inspected with the command go list -m all. Unlike other dependency management systems, the build list is not saved in a “lock” file. MVS is deterministic, and the build list doesn’t change when new versions of dependencies are released, so MVS is used to compute it at the beginning of every module-aware command.

Consider the example in the diagram below. The main module requires module A at version 1.2 or higher and module B at version 1.2 or higher. A 1.2 and B 1.2 require C 1.3 and C 1.4, respectively. C 1.3 and C 1.4 both require D 1.2.

Module version graph with visited versions highlighted

MVS visits and loads the go.mod file for each of the module versions highlighted in blue. At the end of the graph traversal, MVS returns a build list containing the bolded versions: A 1.2, B 1.2, C 1.4, and D 1.2. Note that higher versions of B and D are available but MVS does not select them, since nothing requires them.

Replacement

The content of a module (including its go.mod file) may be replaced using a replace directive in a main module’s go.mod file or a workspace’s go.work file. A replace directive may apply to a specific version of a module or to all versions of a module.

Replacements change the module graph, since a replacement module may have different dependencies than replaced versions.

Consider the example below, where C 1.4 has been replaced with R. R depends on D 1.3 instead of D 1.2, so MVS returns a build list containing A 1.2, B 1.2, C 1.4 (replaced with R), and D 1.3.

Module version graph with a replacement

Exclusion

A module may also be excluded at specific versions using an exclude directive in the main module’s go.mod file.

Exclusions also change the module graph. When a version is excluded, it is removed from the module graph, and requirements on it are redirected to the next higher version.

Consider the example below. C 1.3 has been excluded. MVS will act as if A 1.2 required C 1.4 (the next higher version) instead of C 1.3.

Module version graph with an exclusion

Upgrades

The go get command may be used to upgrade a set of modules. To perform an upgrade, the go command changes the module graph before running MVS by adding edges from visited versions to upgraded versions.

Consider the example below. Module B may be upgraded from 1.2 to 1.3, C may be upgraded from 1.3 to 1.4, and D may be upgraded from 1.2 to 1.3.

Module version graph with upgrades

Upgrades (and downgrades) may add or remove indirect dependencies. In this case, E 1.1 and F 1.1 appear in the build list after the upgrade, since E 1.1 is required by B 1.3.

To preserve upgrades, the go command updates the requirements in go.mod. It will change the requirement on B to version 1.3. It will also add requirements on C 1.4 and D 1.3 with // indirect comments, since those versions would not be selected otherwise.

Downgrade

The go get command may also be used to downgrade a set of modules. To perform a downgrade, the go command changes the module graph by removing versions above the downgraded versions. It also removes versions of other modules that depend on removed versions, since they may not be compatible with the downgraded versions of their dependencies. If the main module requires a module version removed by downgrading, the requirement is changed to a previous version that has not been removed. If no previous version is available, the requirement is dropped.

Consider the example below. Suppose that a problem was found with C 1.4, so we downgrade to C 1.3. C 1.4 is removed from the module graph. B 1.2 is also removed, since it requires C 1.4 or higher. The main module’s requirement on B is changed to 1.1.

Module version graph with downgrade

go get can also remove dependencies entirely, using an @none suffix after an argument. This works similarly to a downgrade. All versions of the named module are removed from the module graph.

Module graph pruning

If the main module is at go 1.17 or higher, the module graph used for minimal version selection includes only the immediate requirements for each module dependency that specifies go 1.17 or higher in its own go.mod file, unless that version of the module is also (transitively) required by some other dependency at go 1.16 or below. (The transitive dependencies of go 1.17 dependencies are pruned out of the module graph.)

Since a go 1.17 go.mod file includes a require directive for every dependency needed to build any package or test in that module, the pruned module graph includes all of the dependencies needed to go build or go test the packages in any dependency explicitly required by the main module. A module that is not needed to build any package or test in a given module cannot affect the run-time behavior of its packages, so the dependencies that are pruned out of the module graph would only cause interference between otherwise-unrelated modules.

Modules whose requirements have been pruned out still appear in the module graph and are still reported by go list -m all: their selected versions are known and well-defined, and packages can be loaded from those modules (for example, as transitive dependencies of tests loaded from other modules). However, since the go command cannot easily identify which dependencies of these modules are satisfied, the arguments to go build and go test cannot include packages from modules whose requirements have been pruned out. go get promotes the module containing each named package to an explicit dependency, allowing go build or go test to be invoked on that package.

Because Go 1.16 and earlier did not support module graph pruning, the full transitive closure of dependencies — including transitive go 1.17 dependencies — is still included for each module that specifies go 1.16 or lower. (At go 1.16 and below, the go.mod file includes only direct dependencies, so a much larger graph must be loaded to ensure that all indirect dependencies are included.)

The go.sum file recorded by go mod tidy for a module by default includes checksums needed by the Go version one below the version specified in its go directive. So a go 1.17 module includes checksums needed for the full module graph loaded by Go 1.16, but a go 1.18 module will include only the checksums needed for the pruned module graph loaded by Go 1.17. The -compat flag can be used to override the default version (for example, to prune the go.sum file more aggressively in a go 1.17 module).

See the design document for more detail.

Lazy module loading

The more comprehensive requirements added for module graph pruning also enable another optimization when working within a module. If the main module is at go 1.17 or higher, the go command avoids loading the complete module graph until (and unless) it is needed. Instead, it loads only the main module’s go.mod file, then attempts to load the packages to be built using only those requirements. If a package to be imported (for example, a dependency of a test for a package outside the main module) is not found among those requirements, then the rest of the module graph is loaded on demand.

If all imported packages can be found without loading the module graph, the go command then loads the go.mod files for only the modules containing those packages, and their requirements are checked against the requirements of the main module to ensure that they are locally consistent. (Inconsistencies can arise due to version-control merges, hand-edits, and changes in modules that have been replaced using local filesystem paths.)

Workspaces

A workspace is a collection of modules on disk that are used as the main modules when running minimal version selection (MVS).

A workspace can be declared in a go.work file that specifies relative paths to the module directories of each of the modules in the workspace. When no go.work file exists, the workspace consists of the single module containing the current directory.

Most go subcommands that work with modules operate on the set of modules determined by the current workspace. go mod init, go mod why, go mod edit, go mod tidy, go mod vendor, and go get always operate on a single main module.

A command determines whether it is in a workspace context by first examining the GOWORK environment variable. If GOWORK is set to off, the command will be in a single-module context. If it is empty or not provided, the command will search the current working directory, and then successive parent directories, for a file go.work. If a file is found, the command will operate in the workspace it defines; otherwise, the workspace will include only the module containing the working directory. If GOWORK names a path to an existing file that ends in .work, workspace mode will be enabled. Any other value is an error. You can use the go env GOWORK command to determine which go.work file the go command is using. go env GOWORK will be empty if the go command is not in workspace mode.

go.work files

A workspace is defined by a UTF-8 encoded text file named go.work. The go.work file is line oriented. Each line holds a single directive, made up of a keyword followed by arguments. For example:

go 1.18

use ./my/first/thing
use ./my/second/thing

replace example.com/bad/thing v1.4.5 => example.com/good/thing v1.4.5

As in go.mod files, a leading keyword can be factored out of adjacent lines to create a block.

use (
    ./my/first/thing
    ./my/second/thing
)

The go command provides several subcommands for manipulating go.work files. go work init creates new go.work files. go work use adds module directories to the go.work file. go work edit performs low-level edits. The golang.org/x/mod/modfile package can be used by Go programs to make the same changes programmatically.

The go command will maintain a go.work.sum file that keeps track of hashes used by the workspace that are not in collective workspace modules’ go.sum files.

It is generally inadvisable to commit go.work files into version control systems, for two reasons:

That said, there are some cases where committing a go.work file makes sense. For example, when the modules in a repository are developed exclusively with each other but not together with external modules, there may not be a reason the developer would want to use a different combination of modules in a workspace. In that case, the module author should ensure the individual modules are tested and released properly.

Lexical elements

Lexical elements in go.work files are defined in exactly the same way as for go.mod files.

Grammar

go.work syntax is specified below using Extended Backus-Naur Form (EBNF). See the Notation section in the Go Language Specification for details on EBNF syntax.

GoWork = { Directive } .
Directive = GoDirective |
            ToolchainDirective |
            UseDirective |
            ReplaceDirective .

Newlines, identifiers, and strings are denoted with newline, ident, and string, respectively.

Module paths and versions are denoted with ModulePath and Version. Module paths and versions are specified in exactly the same way as for go.mod files.

ModulePath = ident | string . /* see restrictions above */
Version = ident | string .    /* see restrictions above */

go directive

A go directive is required in a valid go.work file. The version must be a valid Go release version: a positive integer followed by a dot and a non-negative integer (for example, 1.18, 1.19).

The go directive indicates the go toolchain version with which the go.work file is intended to work. If changes are made to the go.work file format, future versions of the toolchain will interpret the file according to its indicated version.

A go.work file may contain at most one go directive.

GoDirective = "go" GoVersion newline .
GoVersion = string | ident .  /* valid release version; see above */

Example:

go 1.18

toolchain directive

A toolchain directive declares a suggested Go toolchain to use in a workspace. It only has an effect when the default toolchain is older than the suggested toolchain.

For details, see “Go toolchains”.

ToolchainDirective = "toolchain" ToolchainName newline .
ToolchainName = string | ident .  /* valid toolchain name; see “Go toolchains” */

Example:

toolchain go1.21.0

godebug directive

A godebug directive declares a single GODEBUG setting to apply when working in this workspace. The syntax and effect is the same as the go.mod file’s godebug directive. When a workspace is in use, godebug directives in go.mod files are ignored.

use directive

A use adds a module on disk to the set of main modules in a workspace. Its argument is a relative path to the directory containing the module’s go.mod file. A use directive does not add modules contained in subdirectories of its argument directory. Those modules may be added by the directory containing their go.mod file in separate use directives.

UseDirective = "use" ( UseSpec | "(" newline { UseSpec } ")" newline ) .
UseSpec = FilePath newline .
FilePath = /* platform-specific relative or absolute file path */

Example:

use ./mymod  // example.com/mymod

use (
    ../othermod
    ./subdir/thirdmod
)

replace directive

Similar to a replace directive in a go.mod file, a replace directive in a go.work file replaces the contents of a specific version of a module, or all versions of a module, with contents found elsewhere. A wildcard replace in go.work overrides a version-specific replace in a go.mod file.

replace directives in go.work files override any replaces of the same module or module version in workspace modules.

ReplaceDirective = "replace" ( ReplaceSpec | "(" newline { ReplaceSpec } ")" newline ) .
ReplaceSpec = ModulePath [ Version ] "=>" FilePath newline
            | ModulePath [ Version ] "=>" ModulePath Version newline .
FilePath = /* platform-specific relative or absolute file path */

Example:

replace golang.org/x/net v1.2.3 => example.com/fork/net v1.4.5

replace (
    golang.org/x/net v1.2.3 => example.com/fork/net v1.4.5
    golang.org/x/net => example.com/fork/net v1.4.5
    golang.org/x/net v1.2.3 => ./fork/net
    golang.org/x/net => ./fork/net
)

Compatibility with non-module repositories

To ensure a smooth transition from GOPATH to modules, the go command can download and build packages in module-aware mode from repositories that have not migrated to modules by adding a go.mod file.

When the go command downloads a module at a given version directly from a repository, it looks up a repository URL for the module path, maps the version to a revision within the repository, then extracts an archive of the repository at that revision. If the module’s path is equal to the repository root path, and the repository root directory does not contain a go.mod file, the go command synthesizes a go.mod file in the module cache that contains a module directive and nothing else. Since synthetic go.mod files do not contain require directives for their dependencies, other modules that depend on them may need additional require directives (with // indirect comments) to ensure each dependency is fetched at the same version on every build.

When the go command downloads a module from a proxy, it downloads the go.mod file separately from the rest of the module content. The proxy is expected to serve a synthetic go.mod file if the original module didn’t have one.

+incompatible versions

A module released at major version 2 or higher must have a matching major version suffix on its module path. For example, if a module is released at v2.0.0, its path must have a /v2 suffix. This allows the go command to treat multiple major versions of a project as distinct modules, even if they’re developed in the same repository.

The major version suffix requirement was introduced when module support was added to the go command, and many repositories had already tagged releases with major version 2 or higher before that. To maintain compatibility with these repositories, the go command adds an +incompatible suffix to versions with major version 2 or higher without a go.mod file. +incompatible indicates that a version is part of the same module as versions with lower major version numbers; consequently, the go command may automatically upgrade to higher +incompatible versions even though it may break the build.

Consider the example requirement below:

require example.com/m v4.1.2+incompatible

The version v4.1.2+incompatible refers to the semantic version tag v4.1.2 in the repository that provides the module example.com/m. The module must be in the repository root directory (that is, the repository root path must also be example.com/m), and a go.mod file must not be present. The module may have versions with lower major version numbers like v1.5.2, and the go command may upgrade automatically to v4.1.2+incompatible from those versions (see minimal version selection (MVS) for information on how upgrades work).

A repository that migrates to modules after version v2.0.0 is tagged should usually release a new major version. In the example above, the author should create a module with the path example.com/m/v5 and should release version v5.0.0. The author should also update imports of packages in the module to use the prefix example.com/m/v5 instead of example.com/m. See Go Modules: v2 and Beyond for a more detailed example.

Note that the +incompatible suffix should not appear on a tag in a repository; a tag like v4.1.2+incompatible will be ignored. The suffix only appears in versions used by the go command. See Mapping versions to commits for details on the distinction between versions and tags.

Note also that the +incompatible suffix may appear on pseudo-versions. For example, v2.0.1-20200722182040-012345abcdef+incompatible may be a valid pseudo-version.

Minimal module compatibility

A module released at major version 2 or higher is required to have a major version suffix on its module path. The module may or may not be developed in a major version subdirectory within its repository. This has implications for packages that import packages within the module when building GOPATH mode.

Normally in GOPATH mode, a package is stored in a directory matching its repository’s root path joined with its directory within the repository. For example, a package in the repository with root path example.com/repo in the subdirectory sub would be stored in $GOPATH/src/example.com/repo/sub and would be imported as example.com/repo/sub.

For a module with a major version suffix, one might expect to find the package example.com/repo/v2/sub in the directory $GOPATH/src/example.com/repo/v2/sub. This would require the module to be developed in the v2 subdirectory of its repository. The go command supports this but does not require it (see Mapping versions to commits).

If a module is not developed in a major version subdirectory, then its directory in GOPATH will not contain the major version suffix, and its packages may be imported without the major version suffix. In the example above, the package would be found in the directory $GOPATH/src/example.com/repo/sub and would be imported as example.com/repo/sub.

This creates a problem for packages intended to be built in both module mode and GOPATH mode: module mode requires a suffix, while GOPATH mode does not.

To fix this, minimal module compatibility was added in Go 1.11 and was backported to Go 1.9.7 and 1.10.3. When an import path is resolved to a directory in GOPATH mode:

This rules allow packages that have been migrated to modules to import other packages that have been migrated to modules when built in GOPATH mode even when a major version subdirectory was not used.

Module-aware commands

Most go commands may run in Module-aware mode or GOPATH mode. In module-aware mode, the go command uses go.mod files to find versioned dependencies, and it typically loads packages out of the module cache, downloading modules if they are missing. In GOPATH mode, the go command ignores modules; it looks in vendor directories and in GOPATH to find dependencies.

As of Go 1.16, module-aware mode is enabled by default, regardless of whether a go.mod file is present. In lower versions, module-aware mode was enabled when a go.mod file was present in the current directory or any parent directory.

Module-aware mode may be controlled with the GO111MODULE environment variable, which can be set to on, off, or auto.

In module-aware mode, GOPATH no longer defines the meaning of imports during a build, but it still stores downloaded dependencies (in GOPATH/pkg/mod; see Module cache) and installed commands (in GOPATH/bin, unless GOBIN is set).

Build commands

All commands that load information about packages are module-aware. This includes:

When run in module-aware mode, these commands use go.mod files to interpret import paths listed on the command line or written in Go source files. These commands accept the following flags, common to all module commands.

Vendoring

When using modules, the go command typically satisfies dependencies by downloading modules from their sources into the module cache, then loading packages from those downloaded copies. Vendoring may be used to allow interoperation with older versions of Go, or to ensure that all files used for a build are stored in a single file tree.

The go mod vendor command constructs a directory named vendor in the main module’s root directory containing copies of all packages needed to build and test packages in the main module. Packages that are only imported by tests of packages outside the main module are not included. As with go mod tidy and other module commands, build constraints except for ignore are not considered when constructing the vendor directory.

go mod vendor also creates the file vendor/modules.txt that contains a list of vendored packages and the module versions they were copied from. When vendoring is enabled, this manifest is used as a source of module version information, as reported by go list -m and go version -m. When the go command reads vendor/modules.txt, it checks that the module versions are consistent with go.mod. If go.mod has changed since vendor/modules.txt was generated, the go command will report an error. go mod vendor should be run again to update the vendor directory.

If the vendor directory is present in the main module’s root directory, it will be used automatically if the go version in the main module’s go.mod file is 1.14 or higher. To explicitly enable vendoring, invoke the go command with the flag -mod=vendor. To disable vendoring, use the flag -mod=readonly or -mod=mod.

When vendoring is enabled, build commands like go build and go test load packages from the vendor directory instead of accessing the network or the local module cache. The go list -m command only prints information about modules listed in go.mod. go mod commands such as go mod download and go mod tidy do not work differently when vendoring is enabled and will still download modules and access the module cache. go get also does not work differently when vendoring is enabled.

Unlike vendoring in GOPATH mode, the go command ignores vendor directories in locations other than the main module’s root directory. Additionally, since vendor directories in other modules are not used, the go command does not include vendor directories when building module zip files (but see known bugs #31562 and #37397).

go get

Usage:

go get [-d] [-t] [-u] [build flags] [packages]

Examples:

# Upgrade a specific module.
$ go get golang.org/x/net

# Upgrade modules that provide packages imported by packages in the main module.
$ go get -u ./...

# Upgrade or downgrade to a specific version of a module.
$ go get golang.org/x/text@v0.3.2

# Update to the commit on the module's master branch.
$ go get golang.org/x/text@master

# Remove a dependency on a module and downgrade modules that require it
# to versions that don't require it.
$ go get golang.org/x/text@none

# Upgrade the minimum required Go version for the main module.
$ go get go

# Upgrade the suggested Go toolchain, leaving the minimum Go version alone.
$ go get toolchain

# Upgrade to the latest patch release of the suggested Go toolchain.
$ go get toolchain@patch

The go get command updates module dependencies in the go.mod file for the main module, then builds and installs packages listed on the command line.

The first step is to determine which modules to update. go get accepts a list of packages, package patterns, and module paths as arguments. If a package argument is specified, go get updates the module that provides the package. If a package pattern is specified (for example, all or a path with a ... wildcard), go get expands the pattern to a set of packages, then updates the modules that provide the packages. If an argument names a module but not a package (for example, the module golang.org/x/net has no package in its root directory), go get will update the module but will not build a package. If no arguments are specified, go get acts as if . were specified (the package in the current directory); this may be used together with the -u flag to update modules that provide imported packages.

Each argument may include a version query suffix indicating the desired version, as in go get golang.org/x/text@v0.3.0. A version query suffix consists of an @ symbol followed by a version query, which may indicate a specific version (v0.3.0), a version prefix (v0.3), a branch or tag name (master), a revision (1234abcd), or one of the special queries latest, upgrade, patch, or none. If no version is given, go get uses the @upgrade query.

Once go get has resolved its arguments to specific modules and versions, go get will add, change, or remove require directives in the main module’s go.mod file to ensure the modules remain at the desired versions in the future. Note that required versions in go.mod files are minimum versions and may be increased automatically as new dependencies are added. See Minimal version selection (MVS) for details on how versions are selected and conflicts are resolved by module-aware commands.

Other modules may be upgraded when a module named on the command line is added, upgraded, or downgraded if the new version of the named module requires other modules at higher versions. For example, suppose module example.com/a is upgraded to version v1.5.0, and that version requires module example.com/b at version v1.2.0. If module example.com/b is currently required at version v1.1.0, go get example.com/a@v1.5.0 will also upgrade example.com/b to v1.2.0.

go get upgrading a transitive requirement

Other modules may be downgraded when a module named on the command line is downgraded or removed. To continue the above example, suppose module example.com/b is downgraded to v1.1.0. Module example.com/a would also be downgraded to a version that requires example.com/b at version v1.1.0 or lower.

go get downgrading a transitive requirement

A module requirement may be removed using the version suffix @none. This is a special kind of downgrade. Modules that depend on the removed module will be downgraded or removed as needed. A module requirement may be removed even if one or more of its packages are imported by packages in the main module. In this case, the next build command may add a new module requirement.

If a module is needed at two different versions (specified explicitly in command line arguments or to satisfy upgrades and downgrades), go get will report an error.

After go get has selected a new set of versions, it checks whether any newly selected module versions or any modules providing packages named on the command line are retracted or deprecated. go get prints a warning for each retracted version or deprecated module it finds. go list -m -u all may be used to check for retractions and deprecations in all dependencies.

After go get updates the go.mod file, it builds the packages named on the command line. Executables will be installed in the directory named by the GOBIN environment variable, which defaults to $GOPATH/bin or $HOME/go/bin if the GOPATH environment variable is not set.

go get supports the following flags:

Since Go 1.16, go install is the recommended command for building and installing programs. When used with a version suffix (like @latest or @v1.4.6), go install builds packages in module-aware mode, ignoring the go.mod file in the current directory or any parent directory, if there is one.

go get is more focused on managing requirements in go.mod. The -d flag is deprecated, and in Go 1.18, it will always be enabled.

go install

Usage:

go install [build flags] [packages]

Examples:

# Install the latest version of a program,
# ignoring go.mod in the current directory (if any).
$ go install golang.org/x/tools/gopls@latest

# Install a specific version of a program.
$ go install golang.org/x/tools/gopls@v0.6.4

# Install a program at the version selected by the module in the current directory.
$ go install golang.org/x/tools/gopls

# Install all programs in a directory.
$ go install ./cmd/...

The go install command builds and installs the packages named by the paths on the command line. Executables (main packages) are installed to the directory named by the GOBIN environment variable, which defaults to $GOPATH/bin or $HOME/go/bin if the GOPATH environment variable is not set. Executables in $GOROOT are installed in $GOROOT/bin or $GOTOOLDIR instead of $GOBIN. Non-executable packages are built and cached but not installed.

Since Go 1.16, if the arguments have version suffixes (like @latest or @v1.0.0), go install builds packages in module-aware mode, ignoring the go.mod file in the current directory or any parent directory if there is one. This is useful for installing executables without affecting the dependencies of the main module.

To eliminate ambiguity about which module versions are used in the build, the arguments must satisfy the following constraints:

See Version queries for supported version query syntax. Go 1.15 and lower did not support using version queries with go install.

If the arguments don’t have version suffixes, go install may run in module-aware mode or GOPATH mode, depending on the GO111MODULE environment variable and the presence of a go.mod file. See Module-aware commands for details. If module-aware mode is enabled, go install runs in the context of the main module, which may be different from the module containing the package being installed.

go list -m

Usage:

go list -m [-u] [-retracted] [-versions] [list flags] [modules]

Example:

$ go list -m all
$ go list -m -versions example.com/m
$ go list -m -json example.com/m@latest

The -m flag causes go list to list modules instead of packages. In this mode, the arguments to go list may be modules, module patterns (containing the ... wildcard), version queries, or the special pattern all, which matches all modules in the build list. If no arguments are specified, the main module is listed.

When listing modules, the -f flag still specifies a format template applied to a Go struct, but now a Module struct:

type Module struct {
    Path       string        // module path
    Version    string        // module version
    Versions   []string      // available module versions
    Replace    *Module       // replaced by this module
    Time       *time.Time    // time version was created
    Update     *Module       // available update (with -u)
    Main       bool          // is this the main module?
    Indirect   bool          // module is only indirectly needed by main module
    Dir        string        // directory holding local copy of files, if any
    GoMod      string        // path to go.mod file describing module, if any
    GoVersion  string        // go version used in module
    Retracted  []string      // retraction information, if any (with -retracted or -u)
    Deprecated string        // deprecation message, if any (with -u)
    Error      *ModuleError  // error loading module
}

type ModuleError struct {
    Err string // the error itself
}

The default output is to print the module path and then information about the version and replacement if any. For example, go list -m all might print:

example.com/main/module
golang.org/x/net v0.1.0
golang.org/x/text v0.3.0 => /tmp/text
rsc.io/pdf v0.1.1

The Module struct has a String method that formats this line of output, so that the default format is equivalent to -f '{{.String}}'.

Note that when a module has been replaced, its Replace field describes the replacement module, and its Dir field is set to the replacement module’s source code, if present. (That is, if Replace is non-nil, then Dir is set to Replace.Dir, with no access to the replaced source code.)

The -u flag adds information about available upgrades. When the latest version of a given module is newer than the current one, list -u sets the module’s Update field to information about the newer module. list -u also prints whether the currently selected version is retracted and whether the module is deprecated. The module’s String method indicates an available upgrade by formatting the newer version in brackets after the current version. For example, go list -m -u all might print:

example.com/main/module
golang.org/x/old v1.9.9 (deprecated)
golang.org/x/net v0.1.0 (retracted) [v0.2.0]
golang.org/x/text v0.3.0 [v0.4.0] => /tmp/text
rsc.io/pdf v0.1.1 [v0.1.2]

(For tools, go list -m -u -json all may be more convenient to parse.)

The -versions flag causes list to set the module’s Versions field to a list of all known versions of that module, ordered according to semantic versioning, lowest to highest. The flag also changes the default output format to display the module path followed by the space-separated version list. Retracted versions are omitted from this list unless the -retracted flag is also specified.

The -retracted flag instructs list to show retracted versions in the list printed with the -versions flag and to consider retracted versions when resolving version queries. For example, go list -m -retracted example.com/m@latest shows the highest release or pre-release version of the module example.com/m, even if that version is retracted. retract directives and deprecations are loaded from the go.mod file at this version. The -retracted flag was added in Go 1.16.

The template function module takes a single string argument that must be a module path or query and returns the specified module as a Module struct. If an error occurs, the result will be a Module struct with a non-nil Error field.

go mod download

Usage:

go mod download [-x] [-json] [-reuse=old.json] [modules]

Example:

$ go mod download
$ go mod download golang.org/x/mod@v0.2.0

The go mod download command downloads the named modules into the module cache. Arguments can be module paths or module patterns selecting dependencies of the main module or version queries of the form path@version. With no arguments, download applies to all dependencies of the main module.

The go command will automatically download modules as needed during ordinary execution. The go mod download command is useful mainly for pre-filling the module cache or for loading data to be served by a module proxy.

By default, download writes nothing to standard output. It prints progress messages and errors to standard error.

The -json flag causes download to print a sequence of JSON objects to standard output, describing each downloaded module (or failure), corresponding to this Go struct:

type Module struct {
    Path     string // module path
    Query    string // version query corresponding to this version
    Version  string // module version
    Error    string // error loading module
    Info     string // absolute path to cached .info file
    GoMod    string // absolute path to cached .mod file
    Zip      string // absolute path to cached .zip file
    Dir      string // absolute path to cached source root directory
    Sum      string // checksum for path, version (as in go.sum)
    GoModSum string // checksum for go.mod (as in go.sum)
    Origin   any    // provenance of module
    Reuse    bool   // reuse of old module info is safe
}

The -x flag causes download to print the commands download executes to standard error.

The -reuse flag accepts the name of file containing the JSON output of a previous ‘go mod download -json’ invocation. The go command may use this file to determine that a module is unchanged since the previous invocation and avoid redownloading it. Modules that are not redownloaded will be marked in the new output by setting the Reuse field to true. Normally the module cache provides this kind of reuse automatically; the -reuse flag can be useful on systems that do not preserve the module cache.

go mod edit

Usage:

go mod edit [editing flags] [-fmt|-print|-json] [go.mod]

Example:

# Add a replace directive.
$ go mod edit -replace example.com/a@v1.0.0=./a

# Remove a replace directive.
$ go mod edit -dropreplace example.com/a@v1.0.0

# Set the go version, add a requirement, and print the file
# instead of writing it to disk.
$ go mod edit -go=1.14 -require=example.com/m@v1.0.0 -print

# Format the go.mod file.
$ go mod edit -fmt

# Format and print a different .mod file.
$ go mod edit -print tools.mod

# Print a JSON representation of the go.mod file.
$ go mod edit -json

The go mod edit command provides a command-line interface for editing and formatting go.mod files, for use primarily by tools and scripts. go mod edit reads only one go.mod file; it does not look up information about other modules. By default, go mod edit reads and writes the go.mod file of the main module, but a different target file can be specified after the editing flags.

The editing flags specify a sequence of editing operations.

The editing flags may be repeated. The changes are applied in the order given.

go mod edit has additional flags that control its output.

type Module struct {
    Path    string
    Version string
}

type GoMod struct {
    Module  ModPath
    Go      string
    Require []Require
    Exclude []Module
    Replace []Replace
    Retract []Retract
}

type ModPath struct {
    Path       string
    Deprecated string
}

type Require struct {
    Path     string
    Version  string
    Indirect bool
}

type Replace struct {
    Old Module
    New Module
}

type Retract struct {
    Low       string
    High      string
    Rationale string
}

type Tool struct {
    Path      string
}

Note that this only describes the go.mod file itself, not other modules referred to indirectly. For the full set of modules available to a build, use go list -m -json all. See go list -m.

For example, a tool can obtain the go.mod file as a data structure by parsing the output of go mod edit -json and can then make changes by invoking go mod edit with -require, -exclude, and so on.

Tools may also use the package golang.org/x/mod/modfile to parse, edit, and format go.mod files.

go mod graph

Usage:

go mod graph [-go=version]

The go mod graph command prints the module requirement graph (with replacements applied) in text form. For example:

example.com/main example.com/a@v1.1.0
example.com/main example.com/b@v1.2.0
example.com/a@v1.1.0 example.com/b@v1.1.1
example.com/a@v1.1.0 example.com/c@v1.3.0
example.com/b@v1.1.0 example.com/c@v1.1.0
example.com/b@v1.2.0 example.com/c@v1.2.0

Each vertex in the module graph represents a specific version of a module. Each edge in the graph represents a requirement on a minimum version of a dependency.

go mod graph prints the edges of the graph, one per line. Each line has two space-separated fields: a module version and one of its dependencies. Each module version is identified as a string of the form path@version. The main module has no @version suffix, since it has no version.

The -go flag causes go mod graph to report the module graph as loaded by the given Go version, instead of the version indicated by the go directive in the go.mod file.

See Minimal version selection (MVS) for more information on how versions are chosen. See also go list -m for printing selected versions and go mod why for understanding why a module is needed.

go mod init

Usage:

go mod init [module-path]

Example:

go mod init
go mod init example.com/m

The go mod init command initializes and writes a new go.mod file in the current directory, in effect creating a new module rooted at the current directory. The go.mod file must not already exist.

init accepts one optional argument, the module path for the new module. See Module paths for instructions on choosing a module path. If the module path argument is omitted, init will attempt to infer the module path using import comments in .go files, vendoring tool configuration files, and the current directory (if in GOPATH).

If a configuration file for a vendoring tool is present, init will attempt to import module requirements from it. init supports the following configuration files.

Vendoring tool configuration files can’t always be translated with perfect fidelity. For example, if multiple packages within the same repository are imported at different versions, and the repository only contains one module, the imported go.mod can only require the module at one version. You may wish to run go list -m all to check all versions in the build list, and go mod tidy to add missing requirements and to drop unused requirements.

go mod tidy

Usage:

go mod tidy [-e] [-v] [-go=version] [-compat=version]

go mod tidy ensures that the go.mod file matches the source code in the module. It adds any missing module requirements necessary to build the current module’s packages and dependencies, and it removes requirements on modules that don’t provide any relevant packages. It also adds any missing entries to go.sum and removes unnecessary entries.

The -e flag (added in Go 1.16) causes go mod tidy to attempt to proceed despite errors encountered while loading packages.

The -v flag causes go mod tidy to print information about removed modules to standard error.

go mod tidy works by loading all of the packages in the main module, all of its tools, and all of the packages they import, recursively. This includes packages imported by tests (including tests in other modules). go mod tidy acts as if all build tags are enabled, so it will consider platform-specific source files and files that require custom build tags, even if those source files wouldn’t normally be built. There is one exception: the ignore build tag is not enabled, so a file with the build constraint // +build ignore will not be considered. Note that go mod tidy will not consider packages in the main module in directories named testdata or with names that start with . or _ unless those packages are explicitly imported by other packages.

Once go mod tidy has loaded this set of packages, it ensures that each module that provides one or more packages has a require directive in the main module’s go.mod file or — if the main module is at go 1.16 or below — is required by another required module. go mod tidy will add a requirement on the latest version of each missing module (see Version queries for the definition of the latest version). go mod tidy will remove require directives for modules that don’t provide any packages in the set described above.

go mod tidy may also add or remove // indirect comments on require directives. An // indirect comment denotes a module that does not provide a package imported by a package in the main module. (See the require directive for more detail on when // indirect dependencies and comments are added.)

If the -go flag is set, go mod tidy will update the go directive to the indicated version, enabling or disabling module graph pruning and lazy module loading (and adding or removing indirect requirements as needed) according to that version.

By default, go mod tidy will check that the selected versions of modules do not change when the module graph is loaded by the Go version immediately preceding the version indicated in the go directive. The versioned checked for compatibility can also be specified explicitly via the -compat flag.

go mod vendor

Usage:

go mod vendor [-e] [-v] [-o]

The go mod vendor command constructs a directory named vendor in the main module’s root directory that contains copies of all packages needed to support builds and tests of packages in the main module. Packages that are only imported by tests of packages outside the main module are not included. As with go mod tidy and other module commands, build constraints except for ignore are not considered when constructing the vendor directory.

When vendoring is enabled, the go command will load packages from the vendor directory instead of downloading modules from their sources into the module cache and using packages those downloaded copies. See Vendoring for more information.

go mod vendor also creates the file vendor/modules.txt that contains a list of vendored packages and the module versions they were copied from. When vendoring is enabled, this manifest is used as a source of module version information, as reported by go list -m and go version -m. When the go command reads vendor/modules.txt, it checks that the module versions are consistent with go.mod. If go.mod changed since vendor/modules.txt was generated, go mod vendor should be run again.

Note that go mod vendor removes the vendor directory if it exists before re-constructing it. Local changes should not be made to vendored packages. The go command does not check that packages in the vendor directory have not been modified, but one can verify the integrity of the vendor directory by running go mod vendor and checking that no changes were made.

The -e flag (added in Go 1.16) causes go mod vendor to attempt to proceed despite errors encountered while loading packages.

The -v flag causes go mod vendor to print the names of vendored modules and packages to standard error.

The -o flag (added in Go 1.18) causes go mod vendor to output the vendor tree at the specified directory instead of vendor. The argument can be either an absolute path or a path relative to the module root.

go mod verify

Usage:

go mod verify

go mod verify checks that dependencies of the main module stored in the module cache have not been modified since they were downloaded. To perform this check, go mod verify hashes each downloaded module .zip file and extracted directory, then compares those hashes with a hash recorded when the module was first downloaded. go mod verify checks each module in the build list (which may be printed with go list -m all).

If all the modules are unmodified, go mod verify prints “all modules verified”. Otherwise, it reports which modules have been changed and exits with a non-zero status.

Note that all module-aware commands verify that hashes in the main module’s go.sum file match hashes recorded for modules downloaded into the module cache. If a hash is missing from go.sum (for example, because the module is being used for the first time), the go command verifies its hash using the checksum database (unless the module path is matched by GOPRIVATE or GONOSUMDB). See Authenticating modules for details.

In contrast, go mod verify checks that module .zip files and their extracted directories have hashes that match hashes recorded in the module cache when they were first downloaded. This is useful for detecting changes to files in the module cache after a module has been downloaded and verified. go mod verify does not download content for modules not in the cache, and it does not use go.sum files to verify module content. However, go mod verify may download go.mod files in order to perform minimal version selection. It will use go.sum to verify those files, and it may add go.sum entries for missing hashes.

go mod why

Usage:

go mod why [-m] [-vendor] packages...

go mod why shows a shortest path in the import graph from the main module to each of the listed packages.

The output is a sequence of stanzas, one for each package or module named on the command line, separated by blank lines. Each stanza begins with a comment line starting with # giving the target package or module. Subsequent lines give a path through the import graph, one package per line. If the package or module is not referenced from the main module, the stanza will display a single parenthesized note indicating that fact.

For example:

$ go mod why golang.org/x/text/language golang.org/x/text/encoding
# golang.org/x/text/language
rsc.io/quote
rsc.io/sampler
golang.org/x/text/language

# golang.org/x/text/encoding
(main module does not need package golang.org/x/text/encoding)

The -m flag causes go mod why to treat its arguments as a list of modules. go mod why will print a path to any package in each of the modules. Note that even when -m is used, go mod why queries the package graph, not the module graph printed by go mod graph.

The -vendor flag causes go mod why to ignore imports in tests of packages outside the main module (as go mod vendor does). By default, go mod why considers the graph of packages matched by the all pattern. This flag has no effect after Go 1.16 in modules that declare go 1.16 or higher (using the go directive in go.mod), since the meaning of all changed to match the set of packages matched by go mod vendor.

go version -m

Usage:

go version [-m] [-v] [file ...]

Example:

# Print Go version used to build go.
$ go version

# Print Go version used to build a specific executable.
$ go version ~/go/bin/gopls

# Print Go version and module versions used to build a specific executable.
$ go version -m ~/go/bin/gopls

# Print Go version and module versions used to build executables in a directory.
$ go version -m ~/go/bin/

go version reports the Go version used to build each executable file named on the command line.

If no files are named on the command line, go version prints its own version information.

If a directory is named, go version walks that directory, recursively, looking for recognized Go binaries and reporting their versions. By default, go version does not report unrecognized files found during a directory scan. The -v flag causes it to report unrecognized files.

The -m flag causes go version to print each executable’s embedded module version information, when available. For each executable, go version -m prints a table with tab-separated columns like the one below.

$ go version -m ~/go/bin/goimports
/home/jrgopher/go/bin/goimports: go1.14.3
        path    golang.org/x/tools/cmd/goimports
        mod     golang.org/x/tools      v0.0.0-20200518203908-8018eb2c26ba      h1:0Lcy64USfQQL6GAJma8BdHCgeofcchQj+Z7j0SXYAzU=
        dep     golang.org/x/mod        v0.2.0          h1:KU7oHjnv3XNWfa5COkzUifxZmxp1TyI7ImMXqFxLwvQ=
        dep     golang.org/x/xerrors    v0.0.0-20191204190536-9bdfabe68543      h1:E7g+9GITq07hpfrRu66IVDexMakfv52eLZ2CXBWiKr4=

The format of the table may change in the future. The same information may be obtained from runtime/debug.ReadBuildInfo.

The meaning of each row in the table is determined by the word in the first column.

go clean -modcache

Usage:

go clean [-modcache]

The -modcache flag causes go clean to remove the entire module cache, including unpacked source code of versioned dependencies.

This is usually the best way to remove the module cache. By default, most files and directories in the module cache are read-only to prevent tests and editors from unintentionally changing files after they’ve been authenticated. Unfortunately, this causes commands like rm -r to fail, since files can’t be removed without first making their parent directories writable.

The -modcacherw flag (accepted by go build and other module-aware commands) causes new directories in the module cache to be writable. To pass -modcacherw to all module-aware commands, add it to the GOFLAGS variable. GOFLAGS may be set in the environment or with go env -w. For example, the command below sets it permanently:

go env -w GOFLAGS=-modcacherw

-modcacherw should be used with caution; developers should be careful not to make changes to files in the module cache. go mod verify may be used to check that files in the cache match hashes in the main module’s go.sum file.

Version queries

Several commands allow you to specify a version of a module using a version query, which appears after an @ character following a module or package path on the command line.

Examples:

go get example.com/m@latest
go mod download example.com/m@master
go list -m -json example.com/m@e3702bed2

A version query may be one of the following:

Except for queries for specific named versions or revisions, all queries consider available versions reported by go list -m -versions (see go list -m). This list contains only tagged versions, not pseudo-versions. Module versions disallowed by exclude directives in the main module’s go.mod file are not considered. Versions covered by retract directives in the go.mod file from the latest version of the same module are also ignored except when the -retracted flag is used with go list -m and except when loading retract directives.

Release versions are preferred over pre-release versions. For example, if versions v1.2.2 and v1.2.3-pre are available, the latest query will select v1.2.2, even though v1.2.3-pre is higher. The <v1.2.4 query would also select v1.2.2, even though v1.2.3-pre is closer to v1.2.4. If no release or pre-release version is available, the latest, upgrade, and patch queries will select a pseudo-version for the commit at the tip of the repository’s default branch. Other queries will report an error.

Module commands outside a module

Module-aware Go commands normally run in the context of a main module defined by a go.mod file in the working directory or a parent directory. Some commands may be run in module-aware mode without a go.mod file, but most commands work differently or report an error when no go.mod file is present.

See Module-aware commands for information on enabling and disabling module-aware mode.

Command Behavior
go build
go doc
go fix
go fmt
go generate
go install
go list
go run
go test
go vet 		Only packages in the standard library and packages specified as .go files on the command line can be loaded, imported, and built. Packages from other modules cannot be built, since there is no place to record module requirements and ensure deterministic builds.
go get Packages and executables may be built and installed as usual. Note that there is no main module when go get is run without a go.mod file, so replace and exclude directives are not applied.
go list -m Explicit version queries are required for most arguments, except when the -versions flag is used.
go mod download Explicit version queries are required for most arguments.
go mod edit An explicit file argument is required.
go mod graph
go mod tidy
go mod vendor
go mod verify
go mod why 		These commands require a go.mod file and will report an error if one is not present.

go work init

Usage:

go work init [moddirs]

Init initializes and writes a new go.work file in the current directory, in effect creating a new workspace at the current directory.

go work init optionally accepts paths to the workspace modules as arguments. If the argument is omitted, an empty workspace with no modules will be created.

Each argument path is added to a use directive in the go.work file. The current go version will also be listed in the go.work file.

go work edit

Usage:

go work edit [editing flags] [go.work]

The go work edit command provides a command-line interface for editing go.work, for use primarily by tools or scripts. It only reads go.work; it does not look up information about the modules involved. If no file is specified, Edit looks for a go.work file in the current directory and its parent directories

The editing flags specify a sequence of editing operations.

The editing flags may be repeated. The changes are applied in the order given.

go work edit has additional flags that control its output

type Module struct {
    Path    string
    Version string
}

type GoWork struct {
    Go        string
    Directory []Directory
    Replace   []Replace
}

type Use struct {
    Path       string
    ModulePath string
}

type Replace struct {
    Old Module
    New Module
}

go work use

Usage:

go work use [-r] [moddirs]

The go work use command provides a command-line interface for adding directories, optionally recursively, to a go.work file.

A use directive will be added to the go.work file for each argument directory listed on the command line go.work file, if it exists on disk, or removed from the go.work file if it does not exist on disk.

The -r flag searches recursively for modules in the argument directories, and the use command operates as if each of the directories were specified as arguments.

go work sync

Usage:

go work sync

The go work sync command syncs the workspace’s build list back to the workspace’s modules.

The workspace’s build list is the set of versions of all the (transitive) dependency modules used to do builds in the workspace. go work sync generates that build list using the Minimal Version Selection (MVS) algorithm, and then syncs those versions back to each of modules specified in the workspace (with use directives).

Once the workspace build list is computed, the go.mod file for each module in the workspace is rewritten with the dependencies relevant to that module upgraded to match the workspace build list. Note that Minimal Version Selection guarantees that the build list’s version of each module is always the same or higher than that in each workspace module.

Module proxies

GOPROXY protocol

A module proxy is an HTTP server that can respond to GET requests for paths specified below. The requests have no query parameters, and no specific headers are required, so even a site serving from a fixed file system (including a file:// URL) can be a module proxy.

Successful HTTP responses must have the status code 200 (OK). Redirects (3xx) are followed. Responses with status codes 4xx and 5xx are treated as errors. The error codes 404 (Not Found) and 410 (Gone) indicate that the requested module or version is not available on the proxy, but it may be found elsewhere. Error responses should have content type text/plain with charset either utf-8 or us-ascii.

The go command may be configured to contact proxies or source control servers using the GOPROXY environment variable, which accepts a list of proxy URLs. The list may include the keywords direct or off (see Environment variables for details). List elements may be separated by commas (,) or pipes (|), which determine error fallback behavior. When a URL is followed by a comma, the go command falls back to later sources only after a 404 (Not Found) or 410 (Gone) response. When a URL is followed by a pipe, the go command falls back to later sources after any error, including non-HTTP errors such as timeouts. This error handling behavior lets a proxy act as a gatekeeper for unknown modules. For example, a proxy could respond with error 403 (Forbidden) for modules not on an approved list (see Private proxy serving private modules).

The table below specifies queries that a module proxy must respond to. For each path, $base is the path portion of a proxy URL,$module is a module path, and $version is a version. For example, if the proxy URL is https://example.com/mod, and the client is requesting the go.mod file for the module golang.org/x/text at version v0.3.2, the client would send a GET request for https://example.com/mod/golang.org/x/text/@v/v0.3.2.mod.

To avoid ambiguity when serving from case-insensitive file systems, the $module and $version elements are case-encoded by replacing every uppercase letter with an exclamation mark followed by the corresponding lower-case letter. This allows modules example.com/M and example.com/m to both be stored on disk, since the former is encoded as example.com/!m.

Path Description
$base/$module/@v/list Returns a list of known versions of the given module in plain text, one per line. This list should not include pseudo-versions.
$base/$module/@v/$version.info

Returns JSON-formatted metadata about a specific version of a module. The response must be a JSON object that corresponds to the Go data structure below: 

type Info struct {
    Version string    // version string
    Time    time.Time // commit time
}

The Version field is required and must contain a valid, canonical version (see Versions). The $version in the request path does not need to be the same version or even a valid version; this endpoint may be used to find versions for branch names or revision identifiers. However, if $version is a canonical version with a major version compatible with $module, the Version field in a successful response must be the same.

The Time field is optional. If present, it must be a string in RFC 3339 format. It indicates the time when the version was created.

More fields may be added in the future, so other names are reserved.

$base/$module/@v/$version.mod Returns the go.mod file for a specific version of a module. If the module does not have a go.mod file at the requested version, a file containing only a module statement with the requested module path must be returned. Otherwise, the original, unmodified go.mod file must be returned.
$base/$module/@v/$version.zip Returns a zip file containing the contents of a specific version of a module. See Module zip files for details on how this zip file must be formatted.
$base/$module/@latest Returns JSON-formatted metadata about the latest known version of a module in the same format as $base/$module/@v/$version.info. The latest version should be the version of the module that the go command should use if $base/$module/@v/list is empty or no listed version is suitable. This endpoint is optional, and module proxies are not required to implement it.

When resolving the latest version of a module, the go command will request $base/$module/@v/list, then, if no suitable versions are found, $base/$module/@latest. The go command prefers, in order: the semantically highest release version, the semantically highest pre-release version, and the chronologically most recent pseudo-version. In Go 1.12 and earlier, the go command considered pseudo-versions in $base/$module/@v/list to be pre-release versions, but this is no longer true since Go 1.13.

A module proxy must always serve the same content for successful responses for $base/$module/$version.mod and $base/$module/$version.zip queries. This content is cryptographically authenticated using go.sum files and, by default, the checksum database.

The go command caches most content it downloads from module proxies in its module cache in $GOPATH/pkg/mod/cache/download. Even when downloading directly from version control systems, the go command synthesizes explicit info, mod, and zip files and stores them in this directory, the same as if it had downloaded them directly from a proxy. The cache layout is the same as the proxy URL space, so serving $GOPATH/pkg/mod/cache/download at (or copying it to) https://example.com/proxy would let users access cached module versions by setting GOPROXY to https://example.com/proxy.

Communicating with proxies

The go command may download module source code and metadata from a module proxy. The GOPROXY environment variable may be used to configure which proxies the go command may connect to and whether it may communicate directly with version control systems. Downloaded module data is saved in the module cache. The go command will only contact a proxy when it needs information not already in the cache.

The GOPROXY protocol section describes requests that may be sent to a GOPROXY server. However, it’s also helpful to understand when the go command makes these requests. For example, go build follows the procedure below:

When the go command computes the build list, it loads the go.mod file for each module in the module graph. If a go.mod file is not in the cache, the go command will download it from the proxy using a $module/@v/$version.mod request (where $module is the module path and $version is the version). These requests can be tested with a tool like curl. For example, the command below downloads the go.mod file for golang.org/x/mod at version v0.2.0:

$ curl https://proxy.golang.org/golang.org/x/mod/@v/v0.2.0.mod
module golang.org/x/mod

go 1.12

require (
    golang.org/x/crypto v0.0.0-20191011191535-87dc89f01550
    golang.org/x/tools v0.0.0-20191119224855-298f0cb1881e
    golang.org/x/xerrors v0.0.0-20191011141410-1b5146add898
)

In order to load a package, the go command needs the source code for the module that provides it. Module source code is distributed in .zip files which are extracted into the module cache. If a module .zip is not in the cache, the go command will download it using a $module/@v/$version.zip request.

$ curl -O https://proxy.golang.org/golang.org/x/mod/@v/v0.2.0.zip
$ unzip -l v0.2.0.zip | head
Archive:  v0.2.0.zip
  Length      Date    Time    Name
---------  ---------- -----   ----
     1479  00-00-1980 00:00   golang.org/x/mod@v0.2.0/LICENSE
     1303  00-00-1980 00:00   golang.org/x/mod@v0.2.0/PATENTS
      559  00-00-1980 00:00   golang.org/x/mod@v0.2.0/README
       21  00-00-1980 00:00   golang.org/x/mod@v0.2.0/codereview.cfg
      214  00-00-1980 00:00   golang.org/x/mod@v0.2.0/go.mod
     1476  00-00-1980 00:00   golang.org/x/mod@v0.2.0/go.sum
     5224  00-00-1980 00:00   golang.org/x/mod@v0.2.0/gosumcheck/main.go

Note that .mod and .zip requests are separate, even though go.mod files are usually contained within .zip files. The go command may need to download go.mod files for many different modules, and .mod files are much smaller than .zip files. Additionally, if a Go project does not have a go.mod file, the proxy will serve a synthetic go.mod file that only contains a module directive. Synthetic go.mod files are generated by the go command when downloading from a version control system.

If the go command needs to load a package not provided by any module in the build list, it will attempt to find a new module that provides it. The section Resolving a package to a module describes this process. In summary, the go command requests information about the latest version of each module path that could possibly contain the package. For example, for the package golang.org/x/net/html, the go command would try to find the latest versions of the modules golang.org/x/net/html, golang.org/x/net, golang.org/x/, and golang.org. Only golang.org/x/net actually exists and provides that package, so the go command uses the latest version of that module. If more than one module provides the package, the go command will use the module with the longest path.

When the go command requests the latest version of a module, it first sends a request for $module/@v/list. If the list is empty or none of the returned versions can be used, it sends a request for $module/@latest. Once a version is chosen, the go command sends a $module/@v/$version.info request for metadata. It may then send $module/@v/$version.mod and $module/@v/$version.zip requests to load the go.mod file and source code.

$ curl https://proxy.golang.org/golang.org/x/mod/@v/list
v0.1.0
v0.2.0

$ curl https://proxy.golang.org/golang.org/x/mod/@v/v0.2.0.info
{"Version":"v0.2.0","Time":"2020-01-02T17:33:45Z"}

After downloading a .mod or .zip file, the go command computes a cryptographic hash and checks that it matches a hash in the main module’s go.sum file. If the hash is not present in go.sum, by default, the go command retrieves it from the checksum database. If the computed hash does not match, the go command reports a security error and does not install the file in the module cache. The GOPRIVATE and GONOSUMDB environment variables may be used to disable requests to the checksum database for specific modules. The GOSUMDB environment variable may also be set to off to disable requests to the checksum database entirely. See Authenticating modules for more information. Note that version lists and version metadata returned for .info requests are not authenticated and may change over time.

Serving modules directly from a proxy

Most modules are developed and served from a version control repository. In direct mode, the go command downloads such a module with a version control tool (see Version control systems). It’s also possible to serve a module directly from a module proxy. This is useful for organizations that want to serve modules without exposing their version control servers and for organizations that use version control tools the go command does not support.

When the go command downloads a module in direct mode, it first looks up the module server’s URL with an HTTP GET request based on the module path. It looks for a <meta> tag with the name go-import in the HTML response. The tag’s content must contain the repository root path, the version control system, and the URL, separated by spaces. See Finding a repository for a module path for details.

If the version control system is mod, the go command downloads the module from the given URL using the GOPROXY protocol.

For example, suppose the go command is attempting to download the module example.com/gopher at version v1.0.0. It sends a request to https://example.com/gopher?go-get=1. The server responds with an HTML document containing the tag:

<meta name="go-import" content="example.com/gopher mod https://modproxy.example.com">

Based on this response, the go command downloads the module by sending requests for https://modproxy.example.com/example.com/gopher/@v/v1.0.0.info, v1.0.0.mod, and v1.0.0.zip.

Note that modules served directly from a proxy cannot be downloaded with go get in GOPATH mode.

Version control systems

The go command may download module source code and metadata directly from a version control repository. Downloading a module from a proxy is usually faster, but connecting directly to a repository is necessary if a proxy is not available or if a module’s repository is not accessible to a proxy (frequently true for private repositories). Git, Subversion, Mercurial, Bazaar, and Fossil are supported. A version control tool must be installed in a directory in PATH in order for the go command to use it.

To download specific modules from source repositories instead of a proxy, set the GOPRIVATE or GONOPROXY environment variables. To configure the go command to download all modules directly from source repositories, set GOPROXY to direct. See Environment variables for more information.

Finding a repository for a module path

When the go command downloads a module in direct mode, it starts by locating the repository that contains the module.

If the module path has a VCS qualifier (one of .bzr, .fossil, .git, .hg, .svn) at the end of a path component, the go command will use everything up to that path qualifier as the repository URL. For example, for the module example.com/foo.git/bar, the go command downloads the repository at example.com/foo.git using git, expecting to find the module in the bar subdirectory. The go command will guess the protocol to use based on the protocols supported by the version control tool.

If the module path does not have a qualifier, the go command sends an HTTP GET request to a URL derived from the module path with a ?go-get=1 query string. For example, for the module golang.org/x/mod, the go command may send the following requests:

https://golang.org/x/mod?go-get=1 (preferred)
http://golang.org/x/mod?go-get=1  (fallback, only with GOINSECURE)

The go command follows redirects but otherwise ignores response status codes, so the server may respond with a 404 or any other error status. The GOINSECURE environment variable may be set to allow fallback and redirects to unencrypted HTTP for specific modules.

The server must respond with an HTML document containing a <meta> tag in the document’s <head>. The <meta> tag should appear early in the document to avoid confusing the go command’s restricted parser. In particular, it should appear before any raw JavaScript or CSS. The <meta> tag must have the form:

<meta name="go-import" content="root-path vcs repo-url">

root-path is the repository root path, the portion of the module path that corresponds to the repository’s root directory. It must be a prefix or an exact match of the requested module path. If it’s not an exact match, another request is made for the prefix to verify the <meta> tags match.

vcs is the version control system. It must be one of the tools listed in the table below or the keyword mod, which instructs the go command to download the module from the given URL using the GOPROXY protocol. See Serving modules directly from a proxy for details.

repo-url is the repository’s URL. If the URL does not include a scheme (either because the module path has a VCS qualifier or because the <meta> tag lacks a scheme), the go command will try each protocol supported by the version control system. For example, with Git, the go command will try https:// then git+ssh://. Insecure protocols (like http:// and git://) may only be used if the module path is matched by the GOINSECURE environment variable.

Name Command GOVCS default Secure schemes
Bazaar bzr Private only https, bzr+ssh
Fossil fossil Private only https
Git git Public and private https, git+ssh, ssh
Mercurial hg Public and private https, ssh
Subversion svn Private only https, svn+ssh

As an example, consider golang.org/x/mod again. The go command sends a request to https://golang.org/x/mod?go-get=1. The server responds with an HTML document containing the tag:

<meta name="go-import" content="golang.org/x/mod git https://go.googlesource.com/mod">

From this response, the go command will use the Git repository at the remote URL https://go.googlesource.com/mod.

GitHub and other popular hosting services respond to ?go-get=1 queries for all repositories, so usually no server configuration is necessary for modules hosted at those sites.

After the repository URL is found, the go command will clone the repository into the module cache. In general, the go command tries to avoid fetching unneeded data from a repository. However, the actual commands used vary by version control system and may change over time. For Git, the go command can list most available versions without downloading commits. It will usually fetch commits without downloading ancestor commits, but doing so is sometimes necessary.

Mapping versions to commits

The go command may check out a module within a repository at a specific canonical version like v1.2.3, v2.4.0-beta, or v3.0.0+incompatible. Each module version should have a semantic version tag within the repository that indicates which revision should be checked out for a given version.

If a module is defined in the repository root directory or in a major version subdirectory of the root directory, then each version tag name is equal to the corresponding version. For example, the module golang.org/x/text is defined in the root directory of its repository, so the version v0.3.2 has the tag v0.3.2 in that repository. This is true for most modules.

If a module is defined in a subdirectory within the repository, that is, the module subdirectory portion of the module path is not empty, then each tag name must be prefixed with the module subdirectory, followed by a slash. For example, the module golang.org/x/tools/gopls is defined in the gopls subdirectory of the repository with root path golang.org/x/tools. The version v0.4.0 of that module must have the tag named gopls/v0.4.0 in that repository.

The major version number of a semantic version tag must be consistent with the module path’s major version suffix (if any). For example, the tag v1.0.0 could belong to the module example.com/mod but not example.com/mod/v2, which would have tags like v2.0.0.

A tag with major version v2 or higher may belong to a module without a major version suffix if no go.mod file is present, and the module is in the repository root directory. This kind of version is denoted with the suffix +incompatible. The version tag itself must not have the suffix. See Compatibility with non-module repositories.

Once a tag is created, it should not be deleted or changed to a different revision. Versions are authenticated to ensure safe, repeatable builds. If a tag is modified, clients may see a security error when downloading it. Even after a tag is deleted, its content may remain available on module proxies.

Mapping pseudo-versions to commits

The go command may check out a module within a repository at a specific revision, encoded as a pseudo-version like v1.3.2-0.20191109021931-daa7c04131f5.

The last 12 characters of the pseudo-version (daa7c04131f5 in the example above) indicate a revision in the repository to check out. The meaning of this depends on the version control system. For Git and Mercurial, this is a prefix of a commit hash. For Subversion, this is a zero-padded revision number.

Before checking out a commit, the go command verifies that the timestamp (20191109021931 above) matches the commit date. It also verifies that the base version (v1.3.1, the version before v1.3.2 in the example above) corresponds to a semantic version tag that is an ancestor of the commit. These checks ensure that module authors have full control over how pseudo-versions compare with other released versions.

See Pseudo-versions for more information.

Mapping branches and commits to versions

A module may be checked out at a specific branch, tag, or revision using a version query.

go get example.com/mod@master

The go command converts these names into canonical versions that can be used with minimal version selection (MVS). MVS depends on the ability to order versions unambiguously. Branch names and revisions can’t be compared reliably over time, since they depend on repository structure which may change.

If a revision is tagged with one or more semantic version tags like v1.2.3, the tag for the highest valid version will be used. The go command only considers semantic version tags that could belong to the target module; for example, the tag v1.5.2 would not be considered for example.com/mod/v2 since the major version doesn’t match the module path’s suffix.

If a revision is not tagged with a valid semantic version tag, the go command will generate a pseudo-version. If the revision has ancestors with valid semantic version tags, the highest ancestor version will be used as the pseudo-version base. See Pseudo-versions.

Module directories within a repository

Once a module’s repository has been checked out at a specific revision, the go command must locate the directory that contains the module’s go.mod file (the module’s root directory).

Recall that a module path consists of three parts: a repository root path (corresponding to the repository root directory), a module subdirectory, and a major version suffix (only for modules released at v2 or higher).

For most modules, the module path is equal to the repository root path, so the module’s root directory is the repository’s root directory.

Modules are sometimes defined in repository subdirectories. This is typically done for large repositories with multiple components that need to be released and versioned independently. Such a module is expected to be found in a subdirectory that matches the part of the module’s path after the repository root path. For example, suppose the module example.com/monorepo/foo/bar is in the repository with root path example.com/monorepo. Its go.mod file must be in the foo/bar subdirectory.

If a module is released at major version v2 or higher, its path must have a major version suffix. A module with a major version suffix may be defined in one of two subdirectories: one with the suffix, and one without. For example, suppose a new version of the module above is released with the path example.com/monorepo/foo/bar/v2. Its go.mod file may be in either foo/bar or foo/bar/v2.

Subdirectories with a major version suffix are major version subdirectories. They may be used to develop multiple major versions of a module on a single branch. This may be unnecessary when development of multiple major versions proceeds on separate branches. However, major version subdirectories have an important property: in GOPATH mode, package import paths exactly match directories under GOPATH/src. The go command provides minimal module compatibility in GOPATH mode (see Compatibility with non-module repositories), so major version subdirectories aren’t always necessary for compatibility with projects built in GOPATH mode. Older tools that don’t support minimal module compatibility may have problems though.

Once the go command has found the module root directory, it creates a .zip file of the contents of the directory, then extracts the .zip file into the module cache. See File path and size constraints for details on what files may be included in the .zip file. The contents of the .zip file are authenticated before extraction into the module cache the same way they would be if the .zip file were downloaded from a proxy.

Module zip files do not include the contents of vendor directories or any nested modules (subdirectories that contain go.mod files). This means a module must take care not to refer to files outside its directory or in other modules. For example, //go:embed patterns must not match files in nested modules. This behavior may serve as a useful workaround in situations where files should not be included in a module. For example, if a repository has large files checked into a testdata directory, the module author could add an empty go.mod file in testdata so their users don’t need to download those files. Of course, this may reduce coverage for users testing their dependencies.

Special case for LICENSE files

When the go command creates a .zip file for a module that is not in the repository root directory, if the module does not have a file named LICENSE in its root directory (alongside go.mod), the go command will copy the file named LICENSE from the repository root directory if it is present in the same revision.

This special case allows the same LICENSE file to apply to all modules within a repository. This only applies to files named LICENSE specifically, without extensions like .txt. Unfortunately, this cannot be extended without breaking cryptographic sums of existing modules; see Authenticating modules. Other tools and websites like pkg.go.dev may recognize files with other names.

Note also that the go command does not include symbolic links when creating module .zip files; see File path and size constraints. Consequently, if a repository does not have a LICENSE file in its root directory, authors may instead create copies of their license files in modules defined in subdirectories to ensure those files are included in module .zip files.

Controlling version control tools with GOVCS

The go command’s ability to download modules with version control commands like git is critical to the decentralized package ecosystem, in which code can be imported from any server. It is also a potential security problem if a malicious server finds a way to cause the invoked version control command to run unintended code.

To balance the functionality and security concerns, the go command by default will only use git and hg to download code from public servers. It will use any known version control system to download code from private servers, defined as those hosting packages matching the GOPRIVATE environment variable. The rationale behind allowing only Git and Mercurial is that these two systems have had the most attention to issues of being run as clients of untrusted servers. In contrast, Bazaar, Fossil, and Subversion have primarily been used in trusted, authenticated environments and are not as well scrutinized as attack surfaces.

The version control command restrictions only apply when using direct version control access to download code. When downloading modules from a proxy, the go command uses the GOPROXY protocol instead, which is always permitted. By default, the go command uses the Go module mirror (proxy.golang.org) for public modules and only falls back to version control for private modules or when the mirror refuses to serve a public package (typically for legal reasons). Therefore, clients can still access public code served from Bazaar, Fossil, or Subversion repositories by default, because those downloads use the Go module mirror, which takes on the security risk of running the version control commands using a custom sandbox.

The GOVCS variable can be used to change the allowed version control systems for specific modules. The GOVCS variable applies when building packages in both module-aware mode and GOPATH mode. When using modules, the patterns match against the module path. When using GOPATH, the patterns match against the import path corresponding to the root of the version control repository.

The general form of the GOVCS variable is a comma-separated list of pattern:vcslist rules. The pattern is a glob pattern that must match one or more leading elements of the module or import path. The vcslist is a pipe-separated list of allowed version control commands, or all to allow use of any known command, or off to allow nothing. Note that if a module matches a pattern with vcslist off, it may still be downloaded if the origin server uses the mod scheme, which instructs the go command to download the module using the GOPROXY protocol. The earliest matching pattern in the list applies, even if later patterns might also match.

For example, consider:

GOVCS=github.com:git,evil.com:off,*:git|hg

With this setting, code with a module or import path beginning with github.com/ can only use git; paths on evil.com cannot use any version control command, and all other paths (* matches everything) can use only git or hg.

The special patterns public and private match public and private module or import paths. A path is private if it matches the GOPRIVATE variable; otherwise it is public.

If no rules in the GOVCS variable match a particular module or import path, the go command applies its default rule, which can now be summarized in GOVCS notation as public:git|hg,private:all.

To allow unfettered use of any version control system for any package, use:

GOVCS=*:all

To disable all use of version control, use:

GOVCS=*:off

The go env -w command can be used to set the GOVCS variable for future go command invocations.

GOVCS was introduced in Go 1.16. Earlier versions of Go may use any known version control tool for any module.

Module zip files

Module versions are distributed as .zip files. There is rarely any need to interact directly with these files, since the go command creates, downloads, and extracts them automatically from module proxies and version control repositories. However, it’s still useful to know about these files to understand cross-platform compatibility constraints or when implementing a module proxy.

The go mod download command downloads zip files for one or more modules, then extracts those files into the module cache. Depending on GOPROXY and other environment variables, the go command may either download zip files from a proxy or clone source control repositories and create zip files from them. The -json flag may be used to find the location of download zip files and their extracted contents in the module cache.

The golang.org/x/mod/zip package may be used to create, extract, or check contents of zip files programmatically.

File path and size constraints

There are a number of restrictions on the content of module zip files. These constraints ensure that zip files can be extracted safely and consistently on a wide range of platforms.

Private modules

Go modules are frequently developed and distributed on version control servers and module proxies that aren’t available on the public internet. The go command can download and build modules from private sources, though it usually requires some configuration.

The environment variables below may be used to configure access to private modules. See Environment variables for details. See also Privacy for information on controlling information sent to public servers.

These variables may be set in the development environment (for example, in a .profile file), or they may be set permanently with go env -w.

The rest of this section describes common patterns for providing access to private module proxies and version control repositories.

Private proxy serving all modules

A central private proxy server that serves all modules (public and private) provides the most control for administrators and requires the least configuration for individual developers.

To configure the go command to use such a server, set the following environment variables, replacing https://proxy.corp.example.com with your proxy URL and corp.example.com with your module prefix:

GOPROXY=https://proxy.corp.example.com
GONOSUMDB=corp.example.com

The GOPROXY setting instructs the go command to only download modules from https://proxy.corp.example.com; the go command will not connect to other proxies or version control repositories.

The GONOSUMDB setting instructs the go command not to use the public checksum database to authenticate modules with paths starting with corp.example.com.

A proxy running in this configuration will likely need read access to private version control servers. It will also need access to the public internet to download new versions of public modules.

There are several existing implementations of GOPROXY servers that may be used this way. A minimal implementation would serve files from a module cache directory and would use go mod download (with suitable configuration) to retrieve missing modules.

Private proxy serving private modules

A private proxy server may serve private modules without also serving publicly available modules. The go command can be configured to fall back to public sources for modules that aren’t available on the private server.

To configure the go command to work this way, set the following environment variables, replacing https://proxy.corp.example.com with the proxy URL and corp.example.com with the module prefix:

GOPROXY=https://proxy.corp.example.com,https://proxy.golang.org,direct
GONOSUMDB=corp.example.com

The GOPROXY setting instructs the go command to try to download modules from https://proxy.corp.example.com first. If that server responds with 404 (Not Found) or 410 (Gone), the go command will fall back to https://proxy.golang.org, then to direct connections to repositories.

The GONOSUMDB setting instructs the go command not to use the public checksum database to authenticate modules whose paths start with corp.example.com.

Note that a proxy used in this configuration may still control access to public modules, even though it doesn’t serve them. If the proxy responds to a request with an error status other than 404 or 410, the go command will not fall back to later entries in the GOPROXY list. For example, the proxy could respond with 403 (Forbidden) for a module with an unsuitable license or with known security vulnerabilities.

Direct access to private modules

The go command may be configured to bypass public proxies and download private modules directly from version control servers. This is useful when running a private proxy server is not feasible.

To configure the go command to work this way, set GOPRIVATE, replacing corp.example.com the private module prefix:

GOPRIVATE=corp.example.com

The GOPROXY variable does not need to be changed in this situation. It defaults to https://proxy.golang.org,direct, which instructs the go command to attempt to download modules from https://proxy.golang.org first, then fall back to a direct connection if that proxy responds with 404 (Not Found) or 410 (Gone).

The GOPRIVATE setting instructs the go command not to connect to a proxy or to the checksum database for modules starting with corp.example.com.

An internal HTTP server may still be needed to resolve module paths to repository URLs. For example, when the go command downloads the module corp.example.com/mod, it will send a GET request to https://corp.example.com/mod?go-get=1, and it will look for the repository URL in the response. To avoid this requirement, ensure that each private module path has a VCS suffix (like .git) marking the repository root prefix. For example, when the go command downloads the module corp.example.com/repo.git/mod, it will clone the Git repository at https://corp.example.com/repo.git or ssh://corp.example.com/repo.git without needing to make additional requests.

Developers will need read access to repositories containing private modules. This may be configured in global VCS configuration files like .gitconfig. It’s best if VCS tools are configured not to need interactive authentication prompts. By default, when invoking Git, the go command disables interactive prompts by setting GIT_TERMINAL_PROMPT=0, but it respects explicit settings.

Passing credentials to private proxies

The go command supports HTTP basic authentication when communicating with proxy servers.

Credentials may be specified in a .netrc file. For example, a .netrc file containing the lines below would configure the go command to connect to the machine proxy.corp.example.com with the given username and password.

machine proxy.corp.example.com
login jrgopher
password hunter2

The location of the file may be set with the NETRC environment variable. If NETRC is not set, the go command will read $HOME/.netrc on UNIX-like platforms or %USERPROFILE%\_netrc on Windows.

Fields in .netrc are separated with spaces, tabs, and newlines. Unfortunately, these characters cannot be used in usernames or passwords. Note also that the machine name cannot be a full URL, so it’s not possible to specify different usernames and passwords for different paths on the same machine.

Alternatively, credentials may be specified directly in GOPROXY URLs. For example:

GOPROXY=https://jrgopher:hunter2@proxy.corp.example.com

Use caution when taking this approach: environment variables may appear in shell history and in logs.

Passing credentials to private repositories

The go command may download a module directly from a version control repository. This is necessary for private modules if a private proxy is not used. See Direct access to private modules for configuration.

The go command runs version control tools like git when downloading modules directly. These tools perform their own authentication, so you may need to configure credentials in a tool-specific configuration file like .gitconfig.

To ensure this works smoothly, make sure the go command uses the correct repository URL and that the version control tool doesn’t require a password to be entered interactively. The go command prefers https:// URLs over other schemes like ssh:// unless the scheme was specified when looking up the repository URL. For GitHub repositories specifically, the go command assumes https://.

For most servers, you can configure your client to authenticate over HTTP. For example, GitHub supports using OAuth personal access tokens as HTTP passwords. You can store HTTP passwords in a .netrc file, as when passing credentials to private proxies.

Alternatively, you can rewrite https:// URLs to another scheme. For example, in .gitconfig:

[url "git@github.com:"]
    insteadOf = https://github.com/

For more information, see Why does “go get” use HTTPS when cloning a repository?

Privacy

The go command may download modules and metadata from module proxy servers and version control systems. The environment variable GOPROXY controls which servers are used. The environment variables GOPRIVATE and GONOPROXY control which modules are fetched from proxies.

The default value of GOPROXY is:

https://proxy.golang.org,direct

With this setting, when the go command downloads a module or module metadata, it will first send a request to proxy.golang.org, a public module proxy operated by Google (privacy policy). See GOPROXY protocol for details on what information is sent in each request. The go command does not transmit personally identifiable information, but it does transmit the full module path being requested. If the proxy responds with a 404 (Not Found) or 410 (Gone) status, the go command will attempt to connect directly to the version control system providing the module. See Version control systems for details.

The GOPRIVATE or GONOPROXY environment variables may be set to lists of glob patterns matching module prefixes that are private and should not be requested from any proxy. For example:

GOPRIVATE=*.corp.example.com,*.research.example.com

GOPRIVATE simply acts as a default for GONOPROXY and GONOSUMDB, so it’s not necessary to set GONOPROXY unless GONOSUMDB should have a different value. When a module path is matched by GONOPROXY, the go command ignores GOPROXY for that module and fetches it directly from its version control repository. This is useful when no proxy serves private modules. See Direct access to private modules.

If there is a trusted proxy serving all modules, then GONOPROXY should not be set. For example, if GOPROXY is set to one source, the go command will not download modules from other sources. GONOSUMDB should still be set in this situation.

GOPROXY=https://proxy.corp.example.com
GONOSUMDB=*.corp.example.com,*.research.example.com

If there is a trusted proxy serving only private modules, GONOPROXY should not be set, but care must be taken to ensure the proxy responds with the correct status codes. For example, consider the following configuration:

GOPROXY=https://proxy.corp.example.com,https://proxy.golang.org
GONOSUMDB=*.corp.example.com,*.research.example.com

Suppose that due to a typo, a developer attempts to download a module that doesn’t exist.

go mod download corp.example.com/secret-product/typo@latest

The go command first requests this module from proxy.corp.example.com. If that proxy responds with 404 (Not Found) or 410 (Gone), the go command will fall back to proxy.golang.org, transmitting the secret-product path in the request URL. If the private proxy responds with any other error code, the go command prints the error and will not fall back to other sources.

In addition to proxies, the go command may connect to the checksum database to verify cryptographic hashes of modules not listed in go.sum. The GOSUMDB environment variable sets the name, URL, and public key of the checksum database. The default value of GOSUMDB is sum.golang.org, the public checksum database operated by Google (privacy policy). See Checksum database for details on what is transmitted with each request. As with proxies, the go command does not transmit personally identifiable information, but it does transmit the full module path being requested, and the checksum database cannot compute checksums for non-public modules.

The GONOSUMDB environment variable may be set to patterns indicating which modules are private and should not be requested from the checksum database. GOPRIVATE acts as a default for GONOSUMDB and GONOPROXY, so it’s not necessary to set GONOSUMDB unless GONOPROXY should have a different value.

A proxy may mirror the checksum database. If a proxy in GOPROXY does this, the go command will not connect to the checksum database directly.

GOSUMDB may be set to off to disable use of the checksum database entirely. With this setting, the go command will not authenticate downloaded modules unless they’re already in go.sum. See Authenticating modules.

Module cache

The module cache is the directory where the go command stores downloaded module files. The module cache is distinct from the build cache, which contains compiled packages and other build artifacts.

The default location of the module cache is $GOPATH/pkg/mod. To use a different location, set the GOMODCACHE environment variable.

The module cache has no maximum size, and the go command does not remove its contents automatically.

The cache may be shared by multiple Go projects developed on the same machine. The go command will use the same cache regardless of the location of the main module. Multiple instances of the go command may safely access the same module cache at the same time.

The go command creates module source files and directories in the cache with read-only permissions to prevent accidental changes to modules after they’re downloaded. This has the unfortunate side-effect of making the cache difficult to delete with commands like rm -rf. The cache may instead be deleted with go clean -modcache. Alternatively, when the -modcacherw flag is used, the go command will create new directories with read-write permissions. This increases the risk of editors, tests, and other programs modifying files in the module cache. The go mod verify command may be used to detect modifications to dependencies of the main module. It scans the extracted contents of each module dependency and confirms they match the expected hash in go.sum.

The table below explains the purpose of most files in the module cache. Some transient files (lock files, temporary directories) are omitted. For each path, $module is a module path, and $version is a version. Paths ending with slashes (/) are directories. Capital letters in module paths and versions are escaped using exclamation points (Azure is escaped as !azure) to avoid conflicts on case-insensitive file systems.

Path Description
$module@$version/ Directory containing extracted contents of a module .zip file. This serves as a module root directory for a downloaded module. It won't contain a go.mod file if the original module didn't have one.
cache/download/ Directory containing files downloaded from module proxies and files derived from version control systems. The layout of this directory follows the GOPROXY protocol, so this directory may be used as a proxy when served by an HTTP file server or when referenced with a file:// URL.
cache/download/$module/@v/list List of known versions (see GOPROXY protocol). This may change over time, so the go command usually fetches a new copy instead of re-using this file.
cache/download/$module/@v/$version.info JSON metadata about the version. (see GOPROXY protocol). This may change over time, so the go command usually fetches a new copy instead of re-using this file.
cache/download/$module/@v/$version.mod The go.mod file for this version (see GOPROXY protocol). If the original module did not have a go.mod file, this is a synthesized file with no requirements.
cache/download/$module/@v/$version.zip The zipped contents of the module (see GOPROXY protocol and Module zip files).
cache/download/$module/@v/$version.ziphash A cryptographic hash of the files in the .zip file. Note that the .zip file itself is not hashed, so file order, compression, alignment, and metadata don't affect the hash. When using a module, the go command verifies this hash matches the corresponding line in go.sum. The go mod verify command checks that the hashes of module .zip files and extracted directories match these files.
cache/download/sumdb/ Directory containing files downloaded from a checksum database (typically sum.golang.org).
cache/vcs/ Contains cloned version control repositories for modules fetched directly from their sources. Directory names are hex-encoded hashes derived from the repository type and URL. Repositories are optimized for size on disk. For example, cloned Git repositories are bare and shallow when possible.

Authenticating modules

When the go command downloads a module zip file or go.mod file into the module cache, it computes a cryptographic hash and compares it with a known value to verify the file hasn’t changed since it was first downloaded. The go command reports a security error if a downloaded file does not have the correct hash.

For go.mod files, the go command computes the hash from the file content. For module zip files, the go command computes the hash from the names and contents of files within the archive in a deterministic order. The hash is not affected by file order, compression, alignment, and other metadata. See golang.org/x/mod/sumdb/dirhash for hash implementation details.

The go command compares each hash with the corresponding line in the main module’s go.sum file. If the hash is different from the hash in go.sum, the go command reports a security error and deletes the downloaded file without adding it into the module cache.

If the go.sum file is not present, or if it doesn’t contain a hash for the downloaded file, the go command may verify the hash using the checksum database, a global source of hashes for publicly available modules. Once the hash is verified, the go command adds it to go.sum and adds the downloaded file in the module cache. If a module is private (matched by the GOPRIVATE or GONOSUMDB environment variables) or if the checksum database is disabled (by setting GOSUMDB=off), the go command accepts the hash and adds the file to the module cache without verifying it.

The module cache is usually shared by all Go projects on a system, and each module may have its own go.sum file with potentially different hashes. To avoid the need to trust other modules, the go command verifies hashes using the main module’s go.sum whenever it accesses a file in the module cache. Zip file hashes are expensive to compute, so the go command checks pre-computed hashes stored alongside zip files instead of re-hashing the files. The go mod verify command may be used to check that zip files and extracted directories have not been modified since they were added to the module cache.

go.sum files

A module may have a text file named go.sum in its root directory, alongside its go.mod file. The go.sum file contains cryptographic hashes of the module’s direct and indirect dependencies. When the go command downloads a module .mod or .zip file into the module cache, it computes a hash and checks that the hash matches the corresponding hash in the main module’s go.sum file. go.sum may be empty or absent if the module has no dependencies or if all dependencies are replaced with local directories using replace directives.

Each line in go.sum has three fields separated by spaces: a module path, a version (possibly ending with /go.mod), and a hash.

The go.sum file may contain hashes for multiple versions of a module. The go command may need to load go.mod files from multiple versions of a dependency in order to perform minimal version selection. go.sum may also contain hashes for module versions that aren’t needed anymore (for example, after an upgrade). go mod tidy will add missing hashes and will remove unnecessary hashes from go.sum.

Checksum database

The checksum database is a global source of go.sum lines. The go command can use this in many situations to detect misbehavior by proxies or origin servers.

The checksum database allows for global consistency and reliability for all publicly available module versions. It makes untrusted proxies possible since they can’t serve the wrong code without it going unnoticed. It also ensures that the bits associated with a specific version do not change from one day to the next, even if the module’s author subsequently alters the tags in their repository.

The checksum database is served by sum.golang.org, which is run by Google. It is a Transparent Log (or “Merkle Tree”) of go.sum line hashes, which is backed by Trillian. The main advantage of a Merkle tree is that independent auditors can verify that it hasn’t been tampered with, so it is more trustworthy than a simple database.

The go command interacts with the checksum database using the protocol originally outlined in Proposal: Secure the Public Go Module Ecosystem.

The table below specifies queries that the checksum database must respond to. For each path, $base is the path portion of the checksum database URL, $module is a module path, and $version is a version. For example, if the checksum database URL is https://sum.golang.org, and the client is requesting the record for the module golang.org/x/text at version v0.3.2, the client would send a GET request for https://sum.golang.org/lookup/golang.org/x/text@v0.3.2.

To avoid ambiguity when serving from case-insensitive file systems, the $module and $version elements are case-encoded by replacing every uppercase letter with an exclamation mark followed by the corresponding lower-case letter. This allows modules example.com/M and example.com/m to both be stored on disk, since the former is encoded as example.com/!m.

Parts of the path surrounded by square brackets, like [.p/$W] denote optional values.

Path Description
$base/latest Returns a signed, encoded tree description for the latest log. This signed description is in the form of a note, which is text that has been signed by one or more server keys and can be verified using the server's public key. The tree description provides the size of the tree and the hash of the tree head at that size. This encoding is described in golang.org/x/mod/sumdb/tlog#FormatTree.
$base/lookup/$module@$version Returns the log record number for the entry about $module at $version, followed by the data for the record (that is, the go.sum lines for $module at $version) and a signed, encoded tree description that contains the record.
$base/tile/$H/$L/$K[.p/$W] Returns a [log tile](https://research.swtch.com/tlog#serving_tiles), which is a set of hashes that make up a section of the log. Each tile is defined in a two-dimensional coordinate at tile level $L, $Kth from the left, with a tile height of $H. The optional .p/$W suffix indicates a partial log tile with only $W hashes. Clients must fall back to fetching the full tile if a partial tile is not found.
$base/tile/$H/data/$K[.p/$W] Returns the record data for the leaf hashes in /tile/$H/0/$K[.p/$W] (with a literal data path element).

If the go command consults the checksum database, then the first step is to retrieve the record data through the /lookup endpoint. If the module version is not yet recorded in the log, the checksum database will try to fetch it from the origin server before replying. This /lookup data provides the sum for this module version as well as its position in the log, which informs the client of which tiles should be fetched to perform proofs. The go command performs “inclusion” proofs (that a specific record exists in the log) and “consistency” proofs (that the tree hasn’t been tampered with) before adding new go.sum lines to the main module’s go.sum file. It’s important that the data from /lookup should never be used without first authenticating it against the signed tree hash and authenticating the signed tree hash against the client’s timeline of signed tree hashes.

Signed tree hashes and new tiles served by the checksum database are stored in the module cache, so the go command only needs to fetch tiles that are missing.

The go command doesn’t need to directly connect to the checksum database. It can request module sums via a module proxy that mirrors the checksum database and supports the protocol above. This can be particularly helpful for private, corporate proxies which block requests outside the organization.

The GOSUMDB environment variable identifies the name of checksum database to use and optionally its public key and URL, as in:

GOSUMDB="sum.golang.org"
GOSUMDB="sum.golang.org+<publickey>"
GOSUMDB="sum.golang.org+<publickey> https://sum.golang.org"

The go command knows the public key of sum.golang.org, and also that the name sum.golang.google.cn (available inside mainland China) connects to the sum.golang.org checksum database; use of any other database requires giving the public key explicitly. The URL defaults to https:// followed by the database name.

GOSUMDB defaults to sum.golang.org, the Go checksum database run by Google. See https://sum.golang.org/privacy for the service’s privacy policy.

If GOSUMDB is set to off, or if go get is invoked with the -insecure flag, the checksum database is not consulted, and all unrecognized modules are accepted, at the cost of giving up the security guarantee of verified repeatable downloads for all modules. A better way to bypass the checksum database for specific modules is to use the GOPRIVATE or GONOSUMDB environment variables. See Private Modules for details.

The go env -w command can be used to set these variables for future go command invocations.

Environment variables

Module behavior in the go command may be configured using the environment variables listed below. This list only includes module-related environment variables. See go help environment for a list of all environment variables recognized by the go command.

Variable Description
GO111MODULE

Controls whether the go command runs in module-aware mode or GOPATH mode. Three values are recognized:

  • off: the go command ignores go.mod files and runs in GOPATH mode.
  • on (or unset): the go command runs in module-aware mode, even when no go.mod file is present.
  • auto: the go command runs in module-aware mode if a go.mod file is present in the current directory or any parent directory. In Go 1.15 and lower, this was the default.

See Module-aware commands for more information.

GOMODCACHE

The directory where the go command will store downloaded modules and related files. See Module cache for details on the structure of this directory.

If GOMODCACHE is not set, it defaults to $GOPATH/pkg/mod.

GOINSECURE

Comma-separated list of glob patterns (in the syntax of Go's path.Match) of module path prefixes that may always be fetched in an insecure manner. Only applies to dependencies that are being fetched directly.

Unlike the -insecure flag on go get, GOINSECURE does not disable module checksum database validation. GOPRIVATE or GONOSUMDB may be used to achieve that.

GONOPROXY

Comma-separated list of glob patterns (in the syntax of Go's path.Match) of module path prefixes that should always be fetched directly from version control repositories, not from module proxies.

If GONOPROXY is not set, it defaults to GOPRIVATE. See Privacy.

GONOSUMDB

Comma-separated list of glob patterns (in the syntax of Go's path.Match) of module path prefixes for which the go should not verify checksums using the checksum database.

If GONOSUMDB is not set, it defaults to GOPRIVATE. See Privacy.

GOPATH

In GOPATH mode, the GOPATH variable is a list of directories that may contain Go code.

In module-aware mode, the module cache is stored in the pkg/mod subdirectory of the first GOPATH directory. Module source code outside the cache may be stored in any directory.

If GOPATH is not set, it defaults to the go subdirectory of the user's home directory.

GOPRIVATE Comma-separated list of glob patterns (in the syntax of Go's path.Match) of module path prefixes that should be considered private. GOPRIVATE is a default value for GONOPROXY and GONOSUMDB. See Privacy. GOPRIVATE also determines whether a module is considered private for GOVCS.
GOPROXY

List of module proxy URLs, separated by commas (,) or pipes (|). When the go command looks up information about a module, it contacts each proxy in the list in sequence until it receives a successful response or a terminal error. A proxy may respond with a 404 (Not Found) or 410 (Gone) status to indicate the module is not available on that server.

The go command's error fallback behavior is determined by the separator characters between URLs. If a proxy URL is followed by a comma, the go command falls back to the next URL after a 404 or 410 error; all other errors are considered terminal. If the proxy URL is followed by a pipe, the go command falls back to the next source after any error, including non-HTTP errors like timeouts.

GOPROXY URLs may have the schemes https, http, or file. If a URL has no scheme, https is assumed. A module cache may be used directly as a file proxy: 

GOPROXY=file://$(go env GOMODCACHE)/cache/download

Two keywords may be used in place of proxy URLs:

  • off: disallows downloading modules from any source.
  • direct: download directly from version control repositories instead of using a module proxy.

GOPROXY defaults to https://proxy.golang.org,direct. Under that configuration, the go command first contacts the Go module mirror run by Google, then falls back to a direct connection if the mirror does not have the module. See https://proxy.golang.org/privacy for the mirror's privacy policy. The GOPRIVATE and GONOPROXY environment variables may be set to prevent specific modules from being downloaded using proxies. See Privacy for information on private proxy configuration.

See Module proxies and Resolving a package to a module for more information on how proxies are used.

GOSUMDB

Identifies the name of the checksum database to use and optionally its public key and URL. For example: 

GOSUMDB="sum.golang.org"
GOSUMDB="sum.golang.org+<publickey>"
GOSUMDB="sum.golang.org+<publickey> https://sum.golang.org"

The go command knows the public key of sum.golang.org and also that the name sum.golang.google.cn (available inside mainland China) connects to the sum.golang.org database; use of any other database requires giving the public key explicitly. The URL defaults to https:// followed by the database name.

GOSUMDB defaults to sum.golang.org, the Go checksum database run by Google. See https://sum.golang.org/privacy for the service's privacy policy.

If GOSUMDB is set to off or if go get is invoked with the -insecure flag, the checksum database is not consulted, and all unrecognized modules are accepted, at the cost of giving up the security guarantee of verified repeatable downloads for all modules. A better way to bypass the checksum database for specific modules is to use the GOPRIVATE or GONOSUMDB environment variables.

See Authenticating modules and Privacy for more information.

GOVCS

Controls the set of version control tools the go command may use to download public and private modules (defined by whether their paths match a pattern in GOPRIVATE) or other modules matching a glob pattern.

If GOVCS is not set, or if a module does not match any pattern in GOVCS, the go command may use git and hg for a public module, or any known version control tool for a private module. Concretely, the go command acts as if GOVCS were set to: 

public:git|hg,private:all

See Controlling version control tools with GOVCS for a complete explanation.

GOWORK

The `GOWORK` environment variable instructs the `go` command to enter workspace mode using the provided [`go.work` file](#go-work-file) to define the workspace. If `GOWORK` is set to `off` workspace mode is disabled. This can be used to run the `go` command in single module mode: for example, `GOWORK=off go build .` builds the `.` package in single-module mode.`If `GOWORK` is empty, the `go` command will search for a `go.work` file as described in the [Workspaces](#workspaces) section.

Glossary

build constraint: A condition that determines whether a Go source file is used when compiling a package. Build constraints may be expressed with file name suffixes (for example, foo_linux_amd64.go) or with build constraint comments (for example, // +build linux,amd64). See Build Constraints.

build list: The list of module versions that will be used for a build command such as go build, go list, or go test. The build list is determined from the main module’s go.mod file and go.mod files in transitively required modules using minimal version selection. The build list contains versions for all modules in the module graph, not just those relevant to a specific command.

canonical version: A correctly formatted version without a build metadata suffix other than +incompatible. For example, v1.2.3 is a canonical version, but v1.2.3+meta is not.

current module: Synonym for main module.

deprecated module: A module that is no longer supported by its authors (though major versions are considered distinct modules for this purpose). A deprecated module is marked with a deprecation comment in the latest version of its go.mod file.

direct dependency: A package whose path appears in an import declaration in a .go source file for a package or test in the main module, or the module containing such a package. (Compare indirect dependency.)

direct mode: A setting of environment variables that causes the go command to download a module directly from a version control system, as opposed to a module proxy. GOPROXY=direct does this for all modules. GOPRIVATE and GONOPROXY do this for modules matching a list of patterns.

go.mod file: The file that defines a module’s path, requirements, and other metadata. Appears in the module’s root directory. See the section on go.mod files.

go.work file The file that defines the set of modules to be used in a workspace. See the section on go.work files

import path: A string used to import a package in a Go source file. Synonymous with package path.

indirect dependency: A package transitively imported by a package or test in the main module, but whose path does not appear in any import declaration in the main module; or a module that appears in the module graph but does not provide any package directly imported by the main module. (Compare direct dependency.)

lazy module loading: A change in Go 1.17 that avoids loading the module graph for commands that do not need it in modules that specify go 1.17 or higher. See Lazy module loading.

main module: The module in which the go command is invoked. The main module is defined by a go.mod file in the current directory or a parent directory. See Modules, packages, and versions.

major version: The first number in a semantic version (1 in v1.2.3). In a release with incompatible changes, the major version must be incremented, and the minor and patch versions must be set to 0. Semantic versions with major version 0 are considered unstable.

major version subdirectory: A subdirectory within a version control repository matching a module’s major version suffix where a module may be defined. For example, the module example.com/mod/v2 in the repository with root path example.com/mod may be defined in the repository root directory or the major version subdirectory v2. See Module directories within a repository.

major version suffix: A module path suffix that matches the major version number. For example, /v2 in example.com/mod/v2. Major version suffixes are required at v2.0.0 and later and are not allowed at earlier versions. See the section on Major version suffixes.

minimal version selection (MVS): The algorithm used to determine the versions of all modules that will be used in a build. See the section on Minimal version selection for details.

minor version: The second number in a semantic version (2 in v1.2.3). In a release with new, backwards compatible functionality, the minor version must be incremented, and the patch version must be set to 0.

module: A collection of packages that are released, versioned, and distributed together.

module cache: A local directory storing downloaded modules, located in GOPATH/pkg/mod. See Module cache.

module graph: The directed graph of module requirements, rooted at the main module. Each vertex in the graph is a module; each edge is a version from a require statement in a go.mod file (subject to replace and exclude statements in the main module’s go.mod file).

module graph pruning: A change in Go 1.17 that reduces the size of the module graph by omitting transitive dependencies of modules that specify go 1.17 or higher. See Module graph pruning.

module path: A path that identifies a module and acts as a prefix for package import paths within the module. For example, "golang.org/x/net".

module proxy: A web server that implements the GOPROXY protocol. The go command downloads version information, go.mod files, and module zip files from module proxies.

module root directory: The directory that contains the go.mod file that defines a module.

module subdirectory: The portion of a module path after the repository root path that indicates the subdirectory where the module is defined. When non-empty, the module subdirectory is also a prefix for semantic version tags. The module subdirectory does not include the major version suffix, if there is one, even if the module is in a major version subdirectory. See Module paths.

package: A collection of source files in the same directory that are compiled together. See the Packages section in the Go Language Specification.

package path: The path that uniquely identifies a package. A package path is a module path joined with a subdirectory within the module. For example "golang.org/x/net/html" is the package path for the package in the module "golang.org/x/net" in the "html" subdirectory. Synonym of import path.

patch version: The third number in a semantic version (3 in v1.2.3). In a release with no changes to the module’s public interface, the patch version must be incremented.

pre-release version: A version with a dash followed by a series of dot-separated identifiers immediately following the patch version, for example, v1.2.3-beta4. Pre-release versions are considered unstable and are not assumed to be compatible with other versions. A pre-release version sorts before the corresponding release version: v1.2.3-pre comes before v1.2.3. See also release version.

pseudo-version: A version that encodes a revision identifier (such as a Git commit hash) and a timestamp from a version control system. For example, v0.0.0-20191109021931-daa7c04131f5. Used for compatibility with non-module repositories and in other situations when a tagged version is not available.

release version: A version without a pre-release suffix. For example, v1.2.3, not v1.2.3-pre. See also pre-release version.

repository root path: The portion of a module path that corresponds to a version control repository’s root directory. See Module paths.

retracted version: A version that should not be depended upon, either because it was published prematurely or because a severe problem was discovered after it was published. See retract directive.

semantic version tag: A tag in a version control repository that maps a version to a specific revision. See Mapping versions to commits.

selected version: The version of a given module chosen by minimal version selection. The selected version is the highest version for the module’s path found in the module graph.

vendor directory: A directory named vendor that contains packages from other modules needed to build packages in the main module. Maintained with go mod vendor. See Vendoring.

version: An identifier for an immutable snapshot of a module, written as the letter v followed by a semantic version. See the section on Versions.

workspace: A collection of modules on disk that are used as the main modules when running minimal version selection (MVS). See the section on Workspaces

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