At any point in time, you can run the command Go: Current GOPATH to see the GOPATH being used by the extension.

GOPATH from the environment variable

Out of the box, the extension uses the value of the environment variable GOPATH. From Go 1.8 onwards, if no such environment variable is set, then the default GOPATH as deciphered from the command go env is used.

GOPATH from go.gopath setting

Setting go.gopath in User settings overrides the GOPATH that was derived from the above logic. Setting go.gopath in Workspace settings overrides the one from User settings. You can set multiple folders as GOPATH in this setting. Note that they should be ; separated in Windows and : separated otherwise.

GOPATH from go.inferGopath setting

Setting go.inferGopath overrides the value set in go.gopath setting. If go.inferGopath is set to true, the extension will try to infer the GOPATH from the path of the workspace i.e. the directory opened in vscode. It searches upwards in the path for the src directory, and sets GOPATH to one level above that. It will also include the global GOPATH. Run go env GOPATH to find out what your global GOPATH is.

For example, if your project looks like /aaa/bbb/ccc/src/..., then opening the directory /aaa/bbb/ccc/src (or anything below that) will cause the extension to search upwards, find the src component in the path, and set the GOPATH to one level above that i.e. GOPATH=/aaa/bbb/ccc.

This setting is useful when you are working on different Go projects which have different GOPATHs. Instead of setting the GOPATH in the workspace settings of each project or setting all the paths as ;/: separated string, you can just set go.inferGopath to trueand the extension uses the right GOPATH automatically.

GOPATH for installing the Go tools using go.toolsGopath

The go get command installs Go tools in your GOPATH. To prevent the Go tools from cluttering your GOPATH, use the go.toolsGopath setting to provide a separate GOPATH to use just for the Go tools.

The first time you set go.toolsGopath, you will have to run Go: Install/Update Tools command so that the Go tools get installed in the provided location.

If go.toolsGopath is not set or if the Go tools are not found there, then the Go tools from the GOPATH derived from the logic described in the previous section are used. If not found in there as well, then they are looked for in the paths that are part of the PATH environment variable.