What is go-tools?

Staticcheck is a code analysis tool for Go programs. It reads your Go source code without running it and checks for problems: bugs that the compiler would not catch, performance issues, code that can be simplified, and violations of Go's style conventions. The analysis it performs goes beyond what Go's built-in vet tool does. The primary tool in the repository is staticcheck itself. It is installed as a command-line program and run against Go packages, either in a local project or in a CI pipeline. The results are a list of findings with file names and line numbers pointing to the specific code that triggered each check. The checks cover a wide range, from detecting API misuse and incorrect string formatting arguments to flagging code patterns that are valid but confusing or slower than they need to be. The repository also contains three smaller utilities related to struct memory layout: structlayout, which prints the size of each field in a struct and any padding bytes inserted by the compiler between them, structlayout-optimize, which suggests a different field order that would reduce wasted padding, and structlayout-pretty, which formats that output as an ASCII diagram. Installation is done with Go's own install command using a version tag, such as go install followed by the package path and the release version. Pre-built binary downloads are also available for those who do not have Go installed. The tool can analyze code written for any version of Go up to the current release, and it requires only the latest Go release to compile. The project is maintained by a single developer and relies on financial sponsorship from individuals and companies. The README notes that continued development depends on that support and invites users who rely on the tool to consider sponsoring.