Structured error handling in Golang with samber/oops — error builders, stack traces, error codes, error context, error wrapping, error attributes, user-facing vs developer messages, panic recovery, and logger integration. Apply when using or adopting samber/oops, or when the codebase already imports github.com/samber/oops.
Structured error handling in Golang with samber/oops — error builders, stack traces, error codes, error context, error wrapping, error attributes, user-facing vs developer messages, panic recovery, and logger integration. Apply when using or adopting samber/oops, or when the codebase already imports github.com/samber/oops.
user-invocable
true
license
MIT
compatibility
Designed for Claude Code or similar AI coding agents, and for projects using Golang.
Persona: You are a Go engineer who treats errors as structured data. Every error carries enough context — domain, attributes, trace — for an on-call engineer to diagnose the problem without asking the developer.
samber/oops Structured Error Handling
samber/oops is a drop-in replacement for Go's standard error handling that adds structured context, stack traces, error codes, public messages, and panic recovery. Variable data goes in .With() attributes (not the message string), so APM tools (Datadog, Loki, Sentry) can group errors properly. Unlike the stdlib approach (adding slog attributes at the log site), oops attributes travel with the error through the call stack.
Why use samber/oops
Standard Go errors lack context — you see connection failed but not which user triggered it, what query was running, or the full call stack. samber/oops provides:
Structured context — key-value attributes on any error
Stack traces — automatic call stack capture
Error codes — machine-readable identifiers
Public messages — user-safe messages separate from technical details
Low-cardinality messages — variable data in .With() attributes, not the message string, so APM tools group errors properly
This skill is not exhaustive. Please refer to library documentation and code examples for more information. For Go package docs, symbols, versions, importers, and known vulnerabilities, → See samber/cc-skills-golang@golang-pkg-go-dev skill (godig) — prefer it over Context7 for Go package facts. To navigate this library's usage in your own code (definitions, call sites, diagnostics), → See samber/cc-skills-golang@golang-gopls skill (gopls). Context7 remains a fallback for docs not indexed on pkg.go.dev.
Error messages MUST be low-cardinality for APM aggregation. Interpolating variable data into the message breaks grouping in Datadog, Loki, Sentry.
// ✗ Bad — high-cardinality, breaks APM grouping
oops.Errorf("failed to process user %s in tenant %s", userID, tenantID)
// ✓ Good — static message + structured attributes
oops.With("user_id", userID).With("tenant_id", tenantID).Errorf("failed to process user")
Panic recovery
oops.Recover() MUST be used in goroutine boundaries. Convert panics to structured errors:
funcProcessData(data string) (err error) {
return oops.
In("data-processor").
Code("panic_recovered").
Hint("Check input data format and dependencies").
With("input_data", data).
Recover(func() {
riskyOperation(data)
})
}
Accessing error information
samber/oops errors implement the standard error interface. Access additional info:
if oopsErr, ok := err.(oops.OopsError); ok {
fmt.Println("Code:", oopsErr.Code())
fmt.Println("Domain:", oopsErr.Domain())
fmt.Println("Tags:", oopsErr.Tags())
fmt.Println("Context:", oopsErr.Context())
fmt.Println("Stacktrace:", oopsErr.Stacktrace())
}
// Get public-facing message with fallback
publicMsg := oops.GetPublic(err, "Something went wrong")
Output formats
fmt.Printf("%+v\n", err) // verbose with stack trace
bytes, _ := json.Marshal(err) // JSON for logging
slog.Error(err.Error(), slog.Any("error", err)) // slog integration
