gopls is an implementation of the Language Server Protocol (LSP) server for Go. The LSP allows any text editor to be extended with IDE-like features; see https://langserver.org/ for details.
gopls is currently under active development by the Go team. The code is in the x/tools repository, in golang.org/x/tools/internal/lsp and golang.org/x/tools/cmd/gopls. Because we are actively working on gopls, it is not stable. If you choose to use it, be aware that things may regularly break or change.
Contributions are welcome, but since development is so active, we request that you file an issue and claim it before starting to work on something. Otherwise, it is likely that we might already be working on a fix for your issue. There are some LSP issues already open on the Go issue tracker. Any issue without an assignee and with the label “Suggested” is fair game - just please assign yourself or comment on the issue before you begin working!
First, install gopls by running go install golang.org/x/tools/cmd/gopls. We suggest using VSCode with the Go plugin. The required settings are:
"go.useLanguageServer": true, "go.alternateTools": { "go-langserver": "gopls" }, "go.languageServerExperimentalFeatures": { "format": true, "autoComplete": true, "goToDefinition": true, "hover": true, "signatureHelp": true, "goToTypeDefinition": true, }, "go.buildOnSave": "off", "go.vetOnSave": "off", "editor.formatOnSave": true, "editor.codeActionsOnSave": { "source.organizeImports": true, },
Turning off both build and vet on save is useful to avoid duplicating diagnostics from both gopls and VSCode-Go. gopls also runs both gofmt and goimports.
Questions can be directed toward @stamblerre or @ianthehat. For consistent updates on the development progress of gopls, see the notes from the golang-tools meetings (https://github.com/golang/go/wiki/golang-tools).