tools/gopls

gopls, the Go language server

gopls (pronounced "Go please") is the official Go language server developed by the Go team. It provides IDE features to any LSP-compatible editor.

You should not need to interact with gopls directly--it will be automatically integrated into your editor. The specific features and settings vary slightly by editor, so we recommend that you proceed to the documentation for your editor below.

Editors

To get started with gopls, install an LSP plugin in your editor of choice.

• VS Code
• Vim / Neovim
• Emacs
• Atom
• Sublime Text
• Acme
• Lapce

If you use gopls with an editor that is not on this list, please send us a CL updating this documentation.

Installation

For the most part, you should not need to install or update gopls. Your editor should handle that step for you.

If you do want to get the latest stable version of gopls, run the following command:

go install golang.org/x/tools/gopls@latest

Learn more in the advanced installation instructions.

Learn more about gopls releases in the release policy.

Setting up your workspace

gopls supports both Go module, multi-module and GOPATH modes. See the workspace documentation for information on supported workspace layouts.

Configuration

You can configure gopls to change your editor experience or view additional debugging information. Configuration options will be made available by your editor, so see your editor's instructions for specific details. A full list of gopls settings can be found in the settings documentation.

Environment variables

gopls inherits your editor's environment, so be aware of any environment variables you configure. Some editors, such as VS Code, allow users to selectively override the values of some environment variables.

Support Policy

Gopls is maintained by engineers on the Go tools team, who actively monitor the Go and VS Code Go issue trackers.

Supported Go versions

gopls follows the Go Release Policy, meaning that it officially supports the last 2 major Go releases. Per issue #39146, we attempt to maintain best-effort support for the last 4 major Go releases, but this support extends only to not breaking the build and avoiding easily fixable regressions.

In the context of this discussion, gopls "supports" a Go version if it supports being built with that Go version as well as integrating with the go command of that Go version.

The following table shows the final gopls version that supports a given Go version. Go releases more recent than any in the table can be used with any version of gopls.

Go Version	Final gopls version with support (without warnings)
Go 1.12	gopls@v0.7.5
Go 1.15	gopls@v0.9.5
Go 1.17	gopls@v0.11.0

Our extended support is enforced via continuous integration with older Go versions. This legacy Go CI may not block releases: test failures may be skipped rather than fixed. Furthermore, if a regression in an older Go version causes irreconcilable CI failures, we may drop support for that Go version in CI if it is 3 or 4 Go versions old.

Supported build systems

gopls currently only supports the go command, so if you are using a different build system, gopls will not work well. Bazel is not officially supported, but may be made to work with an appropriately configured go/packages driver. See bazelbuild/rules_go#512 for more information. You can follow these instructions to configure your gopls to work with Bazel.

Troubleshooting

If you are having issues with gopls, please follow the steps described in the troubleshooting guide.

Additional information

• Features
• Command-line interface
• Advanced topics
• Contributing to gopls
• Integrating gopls with an editor
• Design requirements and decisions
• Implementation details
• Open issues