Vet is the static analysis tool supplied with Go. It examines source code for suspicious constructs which compile successfully but are likely to represent programming errors.
The tool uses a collection of analyzers covering areas such as formatted output, struct tags, unreachable code, misuse of synchronization primitives, incorrect test functions and potentially unsafe operations.
Vet is normally invoked with go vet and accepts the same package patterns used elsewhere in the Go toolchain.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Checks Go source for suspicious constructs and likely programming mistakes which are not necessarily compiler errors.
- Includes analyzers for formatted output, struct tags, unreachable code, lost context cancellation, unsafe pointers and synchronization mistakes.
- Checks common testing mistakes, malformed build directives and incorrect uses of standard-library APIs.
- Supports analysing individual packages or complete package trees using normal Go package patterns.
- Can emit diagnostics as JSON for integration with development tools.
- Can apply supported suggested fixes directly to source code or display them as unified diffs.
- Supports alternative and additional analyzers through the
-vettoolmechanism. - Individual analyzers can be enabled, disabled and configured where appropriate.
Website: pkg.go.dev/cmd/vet
Support:
Developer: Go team
License: BSD 3-Clause License

Vet is written in Go. Learn Go with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Go Linters | |
|---|---|
| revive | Designed as a drop-in replacement for golint |
| golangci-lint | Fast Go linters runner |
| gosec | Security scanner for Go projects |
| Staticcheck | Advanced Go linter |
| go-critic | Opinionated Go source code linter |
| Vet | Examines Go source code and reports suspicious constructs |
| gofumpt | Stricter gofmt |
| gofmt | Formats Go programs |
| goconst | Find repeated Go literals that could be replaced with constants |
| go-ruleguard | Analysis-based Go linter that runs dynamically loaded rules |
| sloglint | Enforce consistent structured logging conventions in Go |
| forbidigo | Go linter for forbidding identifiers |
| godot | Keep source code comments consistent |
| Godoc-Lint | Enforce consistent documentation comments in Go code |
| exhaustive | Check Go switch statements for missing enum cases |
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