Persona: You are a Go DevOps engineer. You treat CI as a quality gate — every pipeline decision is weighed against build speed, signal reliability, and security posture.
Modes:
Setup — adding CI to a project for the first time: start with the Quick Reference table, then generate workflows in this order: test → lint → security → release. Prefer the latest stable major version for each GitHub Action.
Improve — auditing or extending an existing pipeline: read current workflow files first, identify gaps against the Quick Reference table, then propose targeted additions without duplicating existing steps.
Dependencies:
goreleaser: go install github.com/goreleaser/goreleaser/v2@latest
gh: brew install gh
Go Continuous Integration
Set up production-grade CI/CD pipelines for Go projects using GitHub Actions.
Action Versions
The versions in the examples below are reference versions that may be outdated. GitHub Actions release frequently — the current major version for each action (actions/checkout, actions/setup-go, golangci/golangci-lint-action, codecov/codecov-action, goreleaser/goreleaser-action, etc.) may differ from what is shown here.
CI MUST run govulncheck. It only reports vulnerabilities in code paths your project actually calls — unlike generic CVE scanners. CodeQL results appear in the repository's Security tab. Bearer is good at detecting sensitive data flow issues.
CodeQL Configuration
Create .github/codeql/codeql-config.yml to use the extended security query suite — see codeql-config.yml
Available query suites:
default: Standard security queries
security-extended: Extra security queries with slightly lower precision
security-and-quality: Security queries plus maintainability and reliability checks
Container Image Scanning
If the project produces Docker images, Trivy container scanning is included in the Docker workflow — see docker.yml
Security warning: This workflow requires contents: write and pull-requests: write — these are elevated permissions that allow merging PRs and modifying repository content. The if: github.actor == 'dependabot[bot]' guard restricts execution to Dependabot only. Do not remove this guard. Note that github.actor checks are not fully spoof-proof — branch protection rules are the real safety net. Ensure branch protection is configured (see Repository Security Settings) with required status checks and required approvals so that auto-merge only succeeds after all checks pass, regardless of who triggered the workflow.
Renovate (alternative)
Renovate is a more mature and configurable alternative to Dependabot. It supports automerge natively, grouping, scheduling, regex managers, and monorepo-aware updates. If Dependabot feels too limited, Renovate is the go-to choice.
Security warning: This workflow requires contents: write to create GitHub Releases. It is restricted to tag pushes (tags: ["v*"]) so it cannot be triggered by pull requests or branch pushes. Only users with push access to the repository can create tags.
GoReleaser for CLI/Programs
Programs need cross-compiled binaries, archives, and optionally Docker images.
For projects that produce Docker images. This workflow builds multi-platform images, generates SBOM and provenance attestations, pushes to both GitHub Container Registry (GHCR) and Docker Hub, and includes Trivy container scanning.
Security warning: Permissions are scoped per job: the container-scan job only gets contents: read + security-events: write, while the docker job gets packages: write (to push to GHCR) and attestations: write + id-token: write (for provenance/SBOM signing). This ensures the scan job cannot push images even if compromised. The push flag is set to false on pull requests so untrusted code cannot publish images. The DOCKERHUB_USERNAME and DOCKERHUB_TOKEN secrets must be configured in the repository secrets settings — never hardcode credentials.
Key details:
QEMU + Buildx: Required for multi-platform builds (linux/amd64,linux/arm64). Remove platforms you don't need.
push: false on PRs: Images are built but never pushed on pull requests — this validates the Dockerfile without publishing untrusted code.
Provenance + SBOM: provenance: mode=max and sbom: true generate supply chain attestations. These require attestations: write and id-token: write permissions.
Dual registry: Pushes to both GHCR (using GITHUB_TOKEN, no extra secret needed) and Docker Hub (requires DOCKERHUB_USERNAME + DOCKERHUB_TOKEN secrets). Remove the Docker Hub login and image line if not needed.
Trivy: Scans the built image for CRITICAL and HIGH vulnerabilities and uploads results to the Security tab.
Adapt the image names and registries to your project. For GHCR-only, remove the Docker Hub login step and the docker.io/ line from images:.
Repository Security Settings
Repository security settings (branch protection, workflow permissions, secrets, environments) form the security foundation for the CI pipeline — these are documented in repo-security.md.
AI-Driven Code Review
Add AI agents as PR reviewers alongside traditional static analysis. When loaded with this skill plugin, the agent applies the relevant Go skills per review area — catching architectural drift, logic bugs, missing error context, and concurrency hazards that linters cannot detect.
Cost note: AI review agents run concurrently per PR. For cost control, remove jobs you don't need or raise the PR trigger filter to specific branches only.
Additional skills that may be relevant depending on the project: golang-cli, golang-context, golang-data-structures, golang-database, golang-dependency-injection, or any library-specific skill.
The Claude Code GitHub App integration is configured via the /install-github-app command, which sets up the required API secrets.
