Dependency Management with Go Modules

Go Modules Refresher

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

A module is a collection of related Go packages versioned together.

Initialising a module

$ mkdir cli && cd cli
$ go mod init github.com/yourname/cli

Adding a dependency

$ go get github.com/spf13/cobra@v1.7.0

The go.mod file now contains:

module github.com/yourname/cli

go 1.22

require github.com/spf13/cobra v1.7.0

Tidy up

$ go mod tidy   // removes unused deps, adds missing ones

Vendor directory (optional)

$ go mod vendor

Versioning

• Tag releases with semantic versioning (git tag v1.0.0).
• go install github.com/yourname/cli@latest fetches the latest version.