Building and Publishing a Go Binary

Building Executables

This lesson explains the main concept clearly with beginner-friendly examples and background so you can learn why the code works.

go build compiles a binary for the host OS/architecture.

$ go build -o myapp ./cmd/myapp

Cross‑compilation

# Build Linux binary on macOS
env GOOS=linux GOARCH=amd64 go build -o myapp-linux

Distributing binaries

• Upload to GitHub Releases.
• Use goreleaser for automated builds.

$ go install github.com/goreleaser/goreleaser/v2@latest
$ goreleaser release --snapshot --skip-publish

Containerizing with Docker

FROM golang:1.22-alpine AS builder
WORKDIR /src
COPY . .
RUN go build -o /app ./cmd/app

FROM alpine:latest
COPY --from=builder /app /app
ENTRYPOINT ["/app"]