Windows Development environment for Go

This is just a short summary for Hipsters developing with Go on Windows.

Install package manager & Windows Terminal

First, install Chocolatey, a package manager for Windows, as described here. Secondly, install Windows terminal. Thirdly, install your first choco package, the latest powershell:

choco install powershell-core -y

PowerShell settings

You should allow your PowerShell to execute scripts. You're a developer--the terminal is your friend.

Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -Scope CurrentUser

Install packages

Next, open the windows terminal as an administrator. Then install all the tools we want as a Go programmer on Windows by running:

# Docker for Windows
choco install docker-desktop -y

# protoc (Compiler for protobuf)
choco install protoc -y

# Python, required for some npm packages
choco install python -y
choco install python2 -y
# IMPORTANT: make sure to permanently add the Python27 path to the path environment variable


# Go programming language
choco install go -y
choco install golang -y

# Run make on Windows
choco install make -y

# Git on Windows
choco install git -y --params="'/GitAndUnixToolsOnPath /NoAutoCrlf'"
choco install gh -y
choco install github-desktop -y
choco install poshgit -y
refreshenv

# NodeJS (v14.18.1 because mall uses this version) and tools
choco install nodejs --version=14.18.1 -y
choco install yarn -y
npm install -g node-gyp@6.0.1
npm install -g eslint@6.8.0

# Visual Studio Code (and Fira Code font)
choco install vscode -y
choco install FiraCode -y

From time to time, you might run choco outdated to see which packages have new versions and choco upgrade accordingly.

PHRASEAPP

To install it, just use choco: choco install phraseapp -y

After that you need to login and then go to the Access Tokens page. Generate a new access token and copy it.

Important: If you leave the page, you can never again view the generated access token. You only can create a new one. And then create a new environment variable, with PowerShell: $env:PHRASEAPP_ACCESS_TOKEN="YOUR_TOKEN_HERE"

Go configuration

Please open a new terminal window, not running as administrator.

Type go env to see the settings of your Go installation:

C:\Users\Marek> go version
go version go1.19.1 windows/amd64
C:\Users\Marek> go env
set GO111MODULE=
set GOARCH=amd64
set GOBIN=
set GOCACHE=C:\Users\Marek\AppData\Local\go-build
set GOENV=C:\Users\Marek\AppData\Roaming\go\env
set GOEXE=.exe
set GOEXPERIMENT=
set GOFLAGS=
set GOHOSTARCH=amd64
set GOHOSTOS=windows
set GOINSECURE=
set GOMODCACHE=C:\Users\Marek\go\pkg\mod
set GONOPROXY=github.com/meplato/*,meplato.com/*,meplato.cloud/*
set GONOSUMDB=github.com/meplato/*,meplato.com/*,meplato.cloud/*
set GOOS=windows
set GOPATH=C:\Users\Marek\go
set GOPRIVATE=github.com/meplato/*,meplato.com/*,meplato.cloud/*
set GOPROXY=https://proxy.golang.org,direct
set GOROOT=C:\Program Files\Go
set GOSUMDB=sum.golang.org
set GOTMPDIR=
set GOTOOLDIR=C:\Program Files\Go\pkg\tool\windows_amd64
set GOVCS=
set GOVERSION=go1.19.1
set GCCGO=gccgo
set GOAMD64=v1
set AR=ar
set CC=gcc
set CXX=g++
set CGO_ENABLED=1
set GOMOD=NUL
set GOWORK=
set CGO_CFLAGS=-g -O2
set CGO_CPPFLAGS=
set CGO_CXXFLAGS=-g -O2
set CGO_FFLAGS=-g -O2
set CGO_LDFLAGS=-g -O2
set PKG_CONFIG=pkg-config
set GOGCCFLAGS=-m64 -mthreads -fno-caret-diagnostics -Qunused-arguments -Wl,--no-gc-sections -fmessage-length=0 -fdebug-prefix-map=C:\Users\Marek\AppData\Local\Temp\go-build3035694521=/tmp/go-build -gno-record-gcc-switches

Visual Studio Code

You can start Visual Studio Code as code from the command line (PowerShell, cmd.exe, Hyper etc.).

code

Once VSCode is ready, review its settings. Notice that it has an integrated settings editor; but often it's much easier to simply edit the settings.json manually. On Windows, it is located at %APPDATA%\Code\User\settings.json.

Here's how my settings.json looks like:

{
    "terminal.integrated.shell.windows": "C:\\Windows\\System32\\WindowsPowerShell\\v1.0\\powershell.exe",
    "go.lintTool": "golangci-lint",
    "go.lintFlags": ["--fast"],
    "telemetry.enableTelemetry": false,
    "telemetry.enableCrashReporter": false,
    "editor.fontFamily": "Fira Code",
    "editor.fontLigatures": true,
    "window.zoomLevel": 0
}

Using Fira Code is, of course, completely optional. But I like that font for it has ligatures.

I also use PowerShell as the integrated terminal, but you can use anything that works for you.

The lint tool can be installed from the integrated terminal (Terminal -> New Terminal):

GO111MODULE=on go get github.com/golangci/golangci-lint/cmd/golangci-lint@v1.21.0

Git configuration

Make sure to disable automatic conversion of LF to CRLF (and vice versa) (see here for details).

git config --global core.autocrlf true

Next, setup your credentials. They will be used e.g. when pushing a branch over to GitHub:

git config --global user.email xxx@meplato.de
git config --global user.name "Firstname Lastname"

You might also want to set up some aliases:

git config --global alias.st status
git config --global alias.co checkout
git config --global alias.pushf "push --force-with-lease"

If you want to use Visual Studio Code for editing your git commit and diff messages, you can do so by:

git config --global core.editor "code --wait"