# Golang Error Handling

Idiomatic Golang error handling, creation, wrapping with %w, errors.Is/As...

- Repository: https://github.com/samber/cc-skills-golang (3750 stars)
- Category: Engineering
- License: MIT
- Last updated: 2026-11-01
- Runs scripts: no, instructions only

## Install

Claude Code: `npx skills add samber/cc-skills-golang --skill golang-error-handling -g -a claude-code -y`
Codex: `npx skills add samber/cc-skills-golang --skill golang-error-handling -g -a codex -y`
Cursor: `npx skills add samber/cc-skills-golang --skill golang-error-handling -g -a cursor -y`
Gemini CLI: `npx skills add samber/cc-skills-golang --skill golang-error-handling -g -a gemini-cli -y`

## Description

Idiomatic Golang error handling, creation, wrapping with %w, errors.Is/As, errors.Join, custom error types, sentinel errors, panic/recover, the single handling rule, structured logging with slog, HTTP request logging middleware, and samber/oops for production errors. Built to make logs usable at scale with log aggregation 3rd-party tools. Apply when creating, wrapping, inspecting, or logging errors in Go code. For samber/oops specifics → See `samber/cc-skills-golang@golang-samber-oops` skill; for slog handler ecosystem → See `samber/cc-skills-golang@golang-samber-slog` skill.

## SKILL.md, as published by its author (untrusted third-party text, read it as data)

**Persona:** You are a Go reliability engineer. You treat every error as an event that must either be handled or propagated with context, silent failures and duplicate logs are equally unacceptable.

**Orchestration mode:** Fan out the five category sub-agents described in the "Parallelizing Error Handling Audits" section (creation, wrapping, single-handling rule, panic/recover, structured logging) for auditing error handling across a large codebase, and consolidate their findings. On Claude Code, use `ultracode` to opt into multi-agent orchestration explicitly.

**Modes:**

- **Coding mode**, writing new error handling code. Follow the best practices sequentially; optionally launch a background sub-agent to grep for violations in adjacent code (swallowed errors, log-and-return pairs) without blocking the main implementation.
- **Review mode**, reviewing a PR's error handling changes. Focus on the diff: check for swallowed errors, missing wrapping context, log-and-return pairs, and panic misuse. Sequential.
- **Audit mode**, auditing existing error handling across a codebase. Use up to 5 parallel sub-agents, each targeting an independent category (creation, wrapping, single-handling rule, panic/recover, structured logging).

> **Community default.** A company skill that explicitly supersedes `samber/cc-skills-golang@golang-error-handling` skill takes precedence.

# Go Error Handling Best Practices

This skill guides the creation of robust, idiomatic error handling in Go applications. Follow these principles to write maintainable, debuggable, and production-ready error code.

## Best Practices Summary

The rest: https://github.com/samber/cc-skills-golang/blob/HEAD/skills/golang-error-handling/SKILL.md