go-modern-guidelines

Product Introduction

1. Definition: The JetBrains go-modern-guidelines is a specialized rule set and skill package for AI coding assistants (like GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, Cursor). It functions as a dynamic style guide and code generation policy engine, instructing AI agents to produce Go code that adheres to the latest language idioms and standard library features.
2. Core Value Proposition: It exists to bridge the "AI knowledge gap" in Go development, ensuring AI-generated code is production-ready, idiomatic, and leverages modern Go features up to the project's specified version, thereby eliminating technical debt from outdated patterns at the point of creation.

Main Features

1. Version-Aware Code Generation: The tool's CLI dynamically reads a project's go.mod file to detect the Go version. It then instructs the AI agent to only use language features and standard library packages (e.g., slices, cmp, maps) that are available up to and including that specific version. This prevents the generation of code that would break compilation in older environments.
2. Idiomatic Pattern Enforcement: The guidelines explicitly map outdated Go patterns to their modern equivalents. For example, it directs agents to replace manual loops with slices.Contains, use cmp.Or for nil-safe default values instead of verbose conditional chains, and employ new(42) for obtaining pointers to literals. This ensures consistency with the Go community's evolving best practices.
3. Multi-Agent Platform Integration: The product is packaged as installable plugins/extensions for major AI coding platforms including Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, and Junie, and is accessible via the skills.sh framework for other agents. This wide compatibility ensures developers can apply the same modern Go standards across their preferred AI tooling ecosystem.

Problems Solved

1. Pain Point: AI coding assistants frequently generate outdated, non-idiomatic Go code due to training data lag and frequency bias in their models. This creates immediate technical debt, requiring manual refactoring to meet modern standards and potentially introducing subtle bugs or performance inefficiencies.
2. Target Audience: Primary users are Go developers and engineering teams who utilize AI pair programmers. Secondary users are AI tool creators and platform developers (like those building on the Model Context Protocol) who need to ensure their agents output high-quality, contemporary code for the Go language.
3. Use Cases: Essential when onboarding new team members using AI assistants to ensure consistent code quality; when rapidly prototyping or generating boilerplate with AI to avoid foundational style issues; and for AI tool vendors to differentiate their Go support by offering semantically correct, modern code generation.

Unique Advantages

1. Differentiation: Unlike static linters (e.g., gofmt, staticcheck) that analyze and fix existing code, or generic AI prompts, go-modern-guidelines proactively guides the generation of new code. It is a prescriptive policy layer that operates before a line of code is written, complementing reactive analysis tools.
2. Key Innovation: Its alignment with the official Go toolchain's modernize analyzer represents a key innovation. It doesn't just enforce arbitrary style rules; it codifies the exact upgrade paths the Go team recommends for modernizing codebases, applying them at the point of AI-assisted creation. The use of a lightweight, installable CLI that caches locally ensures zero intrusion into the project itself.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. How does go-modern-guidelines handle different Go versions in projects? The tool's core CLI reads the go.mod file of the active project to determine the Go version. It then dynamically filters its rule set, only permitting the AI to suggest language features and standard library functions that are available in that specific version or earlier, ensuring generated code is always compatible.
2. Can I use go-modern-guidelines with GitHub Copilot? Yes, while not a standalone plugin, the guidelines are accessible via the skills.sh framework which is compatible with agents that support it, including variants used in environments like GitHub's platforms. The principles can also be adapted into custom Copilot context prompts.
3. What is the difference between this and a standard Go linter? Standard linters are reactive, analyzing and reporting issues on code that has already been written. Go-modern-guidelines is proactive and generative; it instructs the AI assistant on how to write code correctly from the start, preventing the outdated patterns that linters would later flag, thereby shifting quality left in the development cycle.
4. Do I need to install Go on my system to use this plugin? Yes, a Go toolchain (1.25+) must be available on your PATH. The plugin's wrapper installs a small CLI into a local cache directory (e.g., ~/.cache/) using go install on first use. If you have automatic toolchain switching enabled (the default), it can fetch a compatible toolchain if needed.
5. How do I update the guidelines when new Go versions are released? For each integrated agent (Claude Code, Cursor, etc.), you update the installed plugin from its marketplace. The repository is maintained by JetBrains, and updates will include new idioms for recent Go releases (e.g., Go 1.26's errors.AsType), which are then propagated to users via the plugin update mechanism of their respective AI agent.