# Go Generator > Design of the ejected Redocly `go` client generator. Read it, and update it, before changing generators/go/. - Skill: `redocly/go-generator` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add redocly/go-generator` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/redocly/go-generator/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Coding & Dev Tools - Author: redocly (https://skillmd.com/u/redocly) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/redocly/go-generator --- # The `go` generator — its skill This file is the DESIGN of your ejected `go` generator (`generators/go/`): **to change the generator, edit this skill first, then make the code match it** — a diff to `generators/go/` that has no covering sentence here is incomplete. ## What it emits One self-contained `.go` (`package client`): structs with `json` tags, a `Client` with one `(T, error)` method per operation taking a `context.Context`, and the embedded runtime. Go ≥ 1.21, standard library only — zero dependencies. ## Design decisions that must hold - **Models are structs**: required fields by value, optionals as pointers with `,omitempty`; the `json` tag always carries the exact wire name. - **Package clause:** `package client` by default, `goPackage` to override — a generated file usually lands in a package the consumer already owns. The value is checked against Go's own rule (lowercase letters, digits, `_`, no leading digit, not a keyword) and an invalid one fails generation: silently rewriting a publisher's package name would be worse than saying no. - **Doc comments are gofmt's shape**, not the description's: a blank line prints as `//` (never `// `, which gofmt strips), and CONSECUTIVE blank lines collapse to one — gofmt rewrites `//\n//` to a single `//`, so emitting both means our output is not gofmt-clean. Descriptions with a double blank line are common in real specs. - **Every parameter is its own argument, so their names share one namespace** with the arguments the method declares itself (`ctx`, `body`, `params`, and the receiver). Build them with `uniqueIdentifiers(..., { taken: … })`: OpenAPI lets one operation use a name in two locations (`id` in the path AND in the query), and Go rejects a duplicate parameter. The wire name is untouched, so the request is unchanged. - **Naming:** exported PascalCase via `identifierFor` + an `N` prefix for digit-leading names (`3ds` → `N3ds` — an `_`-prefixed field is unexported and invisible to `encoding/json`); `+1`/`-1` become `Plus1`/`Minus1`. - **Enums** are typed consts (`type Status string` + `StatusInProgress Status = …`); **discriminated unions** are `type X = any` plus a generated `UnmarshalX([]byte)` dispatcher; **allOf** is flattened. - **Errors:** `(T, error)` returns ARE the error mode — `errorMode` does not change the output (the generator declares `errorModes: ['throw']`, so `result` fails fast). Non-2xx → `*APIError`; timeouts → `*TimeoutError`. - **Dates:** `dateType: Date` maps `format: date-time` to `time.Time` (encoding/json handles RFC 3339 natively) and `date` to the runtime's `Date` wrapper, which marshals as `2006-01-02`. Query values format explicitly, never via `String()`. - **Response headers:** an operation that DECLARES success-response headers gains a `WithHeaders(ctx, …) (T, Headers, error)` variant; `Headers` is a generated struct with pointer fields (nil when absent or unparsable), coerced to int64/bool/string. Operations without declared headers get no variant, and the base method stays `(T, error)`. - **Servers:** when the description declares servers, one `URL(...)` function per server is emitted (named from the server description); server VARIABLES become string parameters (Go has no defaults — the doc comment states the spec default), so templated base URLs need no manual string building. The client's baked default stays `servers[0]` with variable defaults substituted. - **Parity surface:** auth, retries with `Retry-After` + jittered backoff, per-attempt `context.WithTimeout`, idempotency keys, middleware, pagination (`Pages`/`Items` as `func(yield func(T, error) bool)` — `range`-over-func needs Go ≥ 1.23; 1.21 calls them with a callback), SSE, multipart. - **The EMITTED FILE is gofmt-clean, not just the runtime.** `gofmt -l` on generated output must print nothing, so the download is idiomatic as-is. The emitter earns that deterministically, without shelling out to `gofmt`: - `alignGoColumns` pads columns the way gofmt's tabwriter does — struct field types and tags, `const`/`var` types and `=`, and map-literal values — within each contiguous run. A line starting with a Go KEYWORD is a statement, never a declaration, and must never be padded (`case "x":` is not a field). - `case` sits at its `switch`'s own indent, so the switch body is not emitted as an indented block. - At most one blank line between declarations, none at end of file, and a blank line inside a doc comment is `//` — never `// ` with a trailing space. A change here is verified by the `gofmt -l` bar in the unit suite, at cafe AND large-description scale. - The runtime is hand-written in `runtime/runtime.go` in this folder (gofmt-clean, `go vet`-clean) and embedded at prepare time. Under `--runtime module` it is written as a same-package `runtime.go` beside the client, whose import block then lists only the packages its own body uses. - Authored ONLY with the neutral toolkit — the dogfooding guard fails otherwise. - **It documents itself.** With `client.docs` (or `--docs`), the `docs` hook writes `.go.md`: the security schemes, then one section per operation with its parameters, body, response type, and behavior notes. The call snippets come from this generator's own `sample` hook, so the page can only show the syntax of the SDK beside it, and the layout comes from `renderReferencePage` in the authoring toolkit — reachable from an ejected copy through `@redocly/client-generator`. Pagination on the page is decided by `paginationRuleFor`, the same helper this generator resolves pagination with. ## The modify loop 1. Edit this skill: state the new behavior or decision. 2. Make `generators/go/` match it. 3. Run `redocly generate-client` and inspect the `git diff` of the generated output — generated files are never hand-edited. Newer built-in versions merge in with `redocly eject-generator go --update`.