The perfect Neovim setup for Go

Go with Neovim is one of my favorite combinations to use as my daily driver. However, it does take a little configuration to get started.
I want to help share the configuration I have and to encourage others to configure their own editors to work for them. In this video, we look at getting some powerful functionality added to Neovim for use with Go.
If you’re looking for powerful autocomplete, autoformatting, boilerplate reduction, debugging and many other features, then this video will help you achieve that.
⚠️ NVChad has had some breaking changes, make sure to use the v2.0 branch if you're using this video. You can find the command below.
Commands:
NVChad Install line: git clone -b v2.0 github.com/NvChad/NvChad ~/.config/nvim --depth 1
Become a better developer in 4 minutes: bit.ly/45C7a29 👈
#golang #neovim #coding
My socials:
Twitter: / dreamsofcode_io
Discord Server: / discord
My Equipment:
Voice over: kit.co/dreamsofcode/voiceover
Coding: kit.co/dreamsofcode/coding
Please consider supporting me as well!
Patreon: / dreamsofcode
Video Links:
NVChad: github.com/NvChad/NvChad
NVChad Install: git clone -b v2.0 github.com/NvChad/NvChad ~/.config/nvim --depth 1 && nvim
NVChad Install Windows: git clone github.com/NvChad/NvChad $HOME\AppData\Local
vim --depth 1 && nvim
gopls: pkg.go.dev/golang.org/x/tools...
null-ls: github.com/jose-elias-alvarez...
Final Config: github.com/dreamsofcode-io/ne...
00:00 Intro
00:17 Getting Started
01:31 Autocomplete & Suggestions
04:36 Autoformatting
07:05 Deugging
11:03 Extra features

[@dreamsofcode]

NVChad has had some breaking changes since this video! It's recommended to using the v2.0 branch instead for this video. I'll be doing an updated version of this video again soon!. git clone -b v2.0 github.com/NvChad/NvChad ~/.config/nvim --depth 1

[@user-ed2vb1co8d]

I really like your videos, is it possible to setup a full course on nvim from scratch ? instead of using nvchad?

[@dreamsofcode]

@@user-ed2vb1co8d thank you! Yeah I'm leaning towards a from scratch course / video. Currently playing with some ideas of how I can differentiate it from other ones but I think I have an idea!

[@user-ed2vb1co8d]

Awesome, thank you so much @@dreamsofcode.

[@BearsDontStack]

Eagerly awaiting the updated video!

[@v_util]

can't wait for updated version of this great setup! thanks a lot for your work

[@flannn6]

This is just what ive been looking for. Thank you very much for this awesome content! Comming from 3 years of vscode, setting up neovim from scratch was pretty challenging specially because id never spoke lua before. Thanks! :wq

[@wallacecamarinha4808]

I'm just starting with nvim and as someone who doesn't know a lot of lua, or nvim config, your video helped a ton. It was one of the most simple setups to quickly get started with go. Thanks man, keep up the good work.

[@myoungbae8169]

Thank you so much for this. I have been wanting to make the jump into neovim for a long time and I think this has done it for me. Amazing content! It would be amazing to see a setup for Typescript & React for more FrontEnd work setups :)

[@dreamsofcode]

Ive got it on the backlog!

[@jaredconnor7156]

Coming here to +1 on a Typescript video too, that would be awesome.

[@Ic37r011]

This is by far the best run through of setting up neovim for Go programming, hands down. Thank you sir. Thank you

[@retzerR]

I saw your more recent videos of neovim language configs, and was wondering where the go one was. Awesome video!

[@moonlightnirvana1591]

Earned a sub. Looked at the rest of your videos and it's amazing the quality of content you are putting out. Keep up the good work.

[@dreamsofcode]

Thank you! I have a new one coming out this week that I've tried a lot of new concepts with. Hoping this one comes through really well!

[@davidm0rgan]

Lots of insight here, delivered with great pacing, thanks.

[@dreamsofcode]

Thank you!

[@dmz985]

I'd really love to see a video about your arch setup (WM/DE, programs you use, especially your video editor / encoder). Top quality content.

[@dreamsofcode]

I shall have to do one then!

[@afterstory1263]

+1

[@areeburrehmankhan1166]

+1

[@Redyf]

Vouch

[@jamesejr]

+1

[@jay_morelli]

Great!! Thanks so much for the content! You have a great future ahead

[@dreamsofcode]

Thank you! I really appreciate hearing that.

[@dreamsofcode]

You can also install the go formatters using Mason, by adding `golines` `goimports` etc to your mason ensure_installed table. Shout out to @dattien6212 for this suggestion.

[@natancosta2017]

Do u use Gnome?

[@dreamsofcode]

@@natancosta2017 I do for recording!

[@darthvader4899]

i can't install goimports_reviser with mason.nvim

[@liltousin]

@@darthvader4899 Because it's not in mason

[@areeburrehmankhan1166]

Yes. Yes Yes. Finally man you can't believe how much I waited for this specific video. And when you mentioned it on discord that you were gonna upload Man I just kept checking your channel.

[@dreamsofcode]

:) I'm glad its here!

[@crusader_]

Top tier content and more every time. This channels gonna blow up.

[@dreamsofcode]

Thank you so much

[@paulliu6057]

Really love this video! Thank you, sir!

[@th33ng]

Thanks for the video. Awesome work!

[@dreamsofcode]

Thank you for watching! Glad you enjoyed it.

[@joaocarlosfilho]

Love it! Thanks a lot!

[@themarian]

TOP quality content! Thank you sooooo much!!

[@dreamsofcode]

Thank you for watching! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

[@nextorlg]

Great video. It's going to take me a while to modify my config on top of nvchad default and the plugin ray-x/go.nvim to make things work well, but you showed me how to do something that was bothering me a ton. I think it would be good to show I to do formatting without more that gopls, for people like me wants to use as less plugins as possible until they get a good understanding on the basics. Thanks!

[@dreamsofcode]

That's a good suggestion! I went with null-ls so one can build off of, but keeping it simple is also a good idea.

[@derekallred7251]

One for Elixir would be great! I have it setup on my machine but it would be cool to see if you do it differently. Great videos!

[@dreamsofcode]

Absolutely! Elixir is an awesome language.

[@krishnachaithanyaks9693]

First time in my life watching a KZbin video that was posted minutes ago. 😅. By the way I subscribed to this channel this morning!

[@dreamsofcode]

Thank you! I'm glad you liked it.

[@krishnachaithanyaks9693]

It's me supposed to say Thank you for teaching me things for free! Thank you so much sir!

[@ArthurSantos-lq9gi]

First of all, great video!! I'm also using NvChad thanks to you, you have freed me from using the old 'vi" for years. I just have one problem with NeoVim which is Lua. For instance, how would the final configuration be, if I wanted to merge the Rust configuration you made previously, with this one? I think you could make a video on this, or a shorts, after seeing people here on this comment section asking for more languages. Lastly I found a typo on the splits for the "Debugging" section. Thanks for the time and effort making very high quality content.

[@dreamsofcode]

Thank you for the feedback! And for spotting the typo. As for merging, you should just be able to apply the same process but just add the additional fields, rather than replacing anything. i.e. for mason ``` ensure_installed { "rust-analyzer", "gopls" } ``` and for the lsp you'd have two entires, one for lspconfig.gopls and one for lspconfig.rust_analyzer. A short is a great idea! I may also set up a website with an faq as well.

[@dylanpotoy5844]

Great video!

[@dreamsofcode]

Thank you! I appreciate the feedback!

[@sarves_boreddy]

Thanks for the video 😊

[@dreamsofcode]

Thank you for watching.

[@iatheman]

Great video! Learn a ton and got a great neovim env for Go! One thing though, looks like gopls doesn't have the completeUnimported option anymore (4:02) and the behavior is there by default now.

[@dreamsofcode]

Thank you! That's good to know! Thank you for sharing.

[@RootsterAnon]

Hey, I also use Arch, btw... nice to meet you!

[@longdashes]

AND THERE IT IS FOR GO; AS IF YOU'D KNEW I HAVE TO DO A PROJECT IN IT; AAAH!!!!!

[@Emmanuel-th6lu]

You're a blessing bro

[@brviking]

I must say, it was amazing! I would like to see how to add more details, like opening all "debugging stuff" automatically on debug start. Nevertheless, using neovim as primary IDE has been achieved. Thanks!

[@dreamsofcode]

If you check out my python video, I've improved on the debugging UI, and you can apply the same configuration to Go 🙏

[@brviking]

@@dreamsofcode thanks! Done, my setup is wonderful 💯

[@SayfSentinel]

Your videos are way better than the best Netflix shows

[@dreamsofcode]

Haha thank you! That's such nice feedback.

[@kumarraj197]

Great video

[@dreamsofcode]

Thank you, I appreciate that!

[@valdikamenarov8630]

Would've loved to see a way to run unit tests from within your setup. Apart from that awesome setup!

[@dreamsofcode]

I'll be redoing it soon and will add unit tests in next time!

[@oussamasethoum1665]

Thanks a lot man

[@SirRandallDoesStuff]

Thanks, this helped me move from vscode to nvim. This is amazing only one issue with this tutorial. Catppuccin is the worst theme :P other than that solid. Thank you so much.

[@brunojesus5444]

Thank you for this setup. There's one thing missing for me, you shown how to debug tests, but what if I want to start a file and debug it?

[@VitorDonnangeloCardoso]

Great tutorial from the goat. Would love to see a Python one...

[@dreamsofcode]

Its coming! I've got it in the pipeline

[@josephsebastian943]

This is amazing! Would like to see a setup for python as was a lot more work (at least for me). Ruff seems promising. Edit: found your python video. Thanks!

[@ukungx]

thank you for making this usefull video

[@dreamsofcode]

I'm glad you found it useful!

[@stephanegmt3227]

Really great ! what is you terminal font if you mind ? Thanks

[@ChatGTA345]

For Go syntax highlighting, consider adding "gomod", "gosum" and "gowork" as well

[@martindimitrov8547]

Also, it would be cool if you made a video show asking your workflow: your most used commands and flow of vim + tmux

[@dreamsofcode]

Great idea!

[@eduardabramovich1216]

These videos are awesome. Can you make one for nodejs, typescript coding?

[@didedoshka]

great video

[@dreamsofcode]

Thank you!

[@lucianoh4977]

Amazing video! I'm eager to try it out and add my own plugins / customizations. I even managed to get a grasp on Lua configuration on nvchad, i was working from a sample config and i found it a bit hard. I'd like to see some setups on other programming languages, i love adding them to my developer toolkit. What about python? Ruby? Keep up the good work!

[@javiergomezve]

Awesome 👏

[@dreamsofcode]

Thank you;

[@jaredconnor7156]

If you don't mind me asking, what do you use for recording your terminal? The background and perspective are beautiful!

[@dreamsofcode]

I use ffmpeg and a lot of motion animation! I'm actually going to start building these out into products so others can do the same also!

[@mastermachetier5594]

I have switched to astrovim but i am havin a hell of a time figuring out the configs lol

[@spacewad8745]

i was the 70th like. i am sorry for I have ruined the harmony of the world.

[@jonathanwilson8809]

You can use tree sitter for better syntax highlighting

[@user-px6wt4sh6e]

Hi, thanks for the video! What terminal font do you use? On mine the icons don't appear

[@vuongngo8228]

I watch 7 minutes of your video and follow in half a day to config my neovim

[@dreamsofcode]

I'm hopefully going to make it easier to follow in the future! Stay tuned for that.

[@vuongngo8228]

@@dreamsofcode btw your video is great. Keep it goingg

[@Majiy00]

Great video! Do you know if there is an easy way in nvim to run a single sub tests, particularly those written using maps ?

[@dreamsofcode]

I don't believe it's possible unfortunately. I'm not sure if it's possible to run a single table test with just the `go test` command either.

[@fahimferdous1641]

Truely an underrated channel. Hope your growth soon becomes proportional to 2^n

[@dreamsofcode]

Thank you. I appreciate that a lot!

[@coffeeintocode]

I'm a big Go user so super thanks for this! Can you set up TypeScript as well? (Can't escape JS land :) )

[@dreamsofcode]

I absolutely will!

[@Davidlavieri]

Ayoooo debug was so essential i couldn't bother to set it up on nvim and went back to goland

[@dreamsofcode]

Now you can use my config :) To be fair, I want to improve the debugging experience further using nvim-dap-ui which provides even better ui features for debugging.

[@raymondong349]

hello, thank you for the video, you've earned yourself a subscriber! I'm getting started with NvChad and having some difficulty understanding how the config works. Could you help me please? 1. in 9:49, we use init field for loading key mapping for nvim-dap but config field for loading key mapping for dap_go, why is that? 2. Is this the preferred way for setting keybinding for nvChad? Also, I can’t see how load_mappings is linked to fetching the table from mappings.lua to get the key mapping 😅 Thank you so much for your help!

[@ricardorien]

THAANNKKSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!

[@PhanorColl]

nice, you should do one for Typescript/React

[@dreamsofcode]

I shall add it to the backlog!

[@ericflores4353]

Thanks!

[@dreamsofcode]

Thank you so much! I really appreciate the support!

[@TheComix96]

Nice video! I have a question since I watched the NvChad video. Is there a way to execute the various installs/updates through NvChad o masoninstall from command line? I wrote an ansible playbook for some configs in vim and nvim and I wanted to install all through that

[@dreamsofcode]

Hmm that's a good question. I'm sure there is but I'll have to dig it. I just tend to use git to manage my config. Mason itself can be used more than I'm using in the video, which is my mistake!

[@TheComix96]

Look, I think that I kinda did something through the custom files in Jinja template format. When I'll push and redefine all, I could make it public

[@martindimitrov8547]

Idea: continue from this setup and build up on it (like a series). Maybe next you can add typescript!

[@dreamsofcode]

Agreed! I've got a few in the backlog to add up next. Typescript will be one of them

[@ariel85]

Amazing! Which nerd font do you use?

[@dreamsofcode]

I use JetBrainsMono Nerd Font!

[@EATNEWS]

Can you do a video on how you would set up multiple languages. I get the concept but would help to see examples

[@brendankerr148]

Looks like null-ls was archived recently. Any thoughts on this? Thinking of running with null-ls for the time being on my new neovim setup until the formatting starts failing. Hopefully by then there should be some good alternatives. I haven't seen much but haven't looked too much and am pretty new to neovim community.

[@SulemanKhan-kn9mj]

you can use none-ls which is same package with different name

[@prashlovessamosa]

Thank you

[@dreamsofcode]

Thank you for watching!

[@TalesMarinho]

isnt any step missing after clonning the NVChad repo? I mean, I am getting the following error after cloning the way you proposed: Error detected while processing /home/tales/.config/nvim/init.lua: E5113: Error while calling lua chunk: cannot open /home/tales/.local/share/nvim/nvchad/base46/defaults: No such file or directory

[@mfinixone1417]

You see that red line error that the LSP gives when you make an error, is there a way to give it a max charecter limit for example for each 30 charecter make a new line

[@VitoSansevero]

Thanks for these videos, not many on nvchad. Could you do one on python + dap?

[@dreamsofcode]

I absolutely can and will;

[@theintjengineer]

Good stuff 👌🏽 Could you do that, but for C++ and CMake?😅 Thanks, Man.

[@dreamsofcode]

I can do! Added to the backlog.

[@mateuszkubaszek7318]

What is your perfect terminal emulator? Looks so nice. I'm on macos and use warp (yeah I know telemetry etc, but this is so beatyful), but looking some for backup.

[@dreamsofcode]

I use Alacritty! Warp does look nice but as you mentioned. I've just picked up a Mac for creative work so may give warp a little try. I have alacritty on it currently however.

[@roarc0]

I use a lot the rename identifiers with f2 (using :%s/aa/bb/g is not the same). is there a similar function? Also generate unit test and the "extract function" from the selection of a block of code.

[@davidvillalobosvargas]

thank you

[@dreamsofcode]

You're welcome! Thank you for watching.

[@pebble24]

A nice C/C++ setup video would be greatly appreciated

[@dreamsofcode]

I shall add it to the list!

[@joshduffney7954]

Tell me more about the nice Vim icon that indicates the mode you're in. :)

[@dadagj728]

what if some characters do not display at my nvim on Windows 10? e.g. list markers? only have the crossed out rectangles, and the text?

Thanks a lot! I'm happy with nvim and go.

[@jacostaperu]

Would you mind doing the setup demo for OCAML

[@bishowpandey453]

What window manager are you using?

[@kirillarionov123456]

One for C++ would be great!

[@dreamsofcode]

I shall get one done!

[@abhishekjaiswal5239]

can you create a video for the terminal setup you have?

[@Simon-xi8tb]

Yeah, but default omnifunc completion sucks. DO I need to add autocomplete on topf of that ?

[@ThisGuyRocksLikeCrazy]

Is this better than go-vim?

[@ForeverZer0]

I never bothered investigating why, but the auto-completion is always terrible in NvChad compared to when I do the exact same in a "standard" minimal setup. I really want to like NvChad, in has some sleek UI configuration out of the box, but it messes way to hard with productivity settings and breaking the standard way to configure them. Once in a while I decide to give it a try and configure it to my taste, and every time I end up with an editor that looks nicer, but has broken functionality and less features than when I do it myself from a bare install.

[@cuongvoquoc6534]

I don't use NVChad but still use Mason + LspConfig. The issue that I want to make neovim aware goenv eachtime open a repository. How can I do it clearly in nvim config?

[@Cyneptic]

Great video, I have one issue though, for tag adds, I keep getting struct not found even though there are structs defined and the cursor is on them, could you maybe help me out or point me in the right direction? thanks

[@dreamsofcode]

Do you have treesitter installed? If you jump on my discord server I can better help

[@Ryan-uh5zf]

Excellent videos, when I am using the nvim-dap-go, I found that if there is an error in the test function, the debugger exits without showing the error message. Have you encountered the same problem before?

[@dreamsofcode]

Hmm I have no? Is it a compilation error or just a failure in the test?

[@Ryan-uh5zf]

Let's say that I have a function f, which has an error, that could be fixed by a blank import. When I run test code for f, I expect the test to fail and produce an error message related to the error of f, but when I ran the test code, it just silently ended, no error messages or no signs. `result, err := f(...)`, there is something in `err` and I call log.Fatal(..., err), but there is no log showing. @@dreamsofcode

[@vivianeramosluz547]

What font for nvim do you use in this video?

[@seandougherty3022]

Now that null-ls is a public archive and no longer maintained, do you plan to redo your series of setups that use null-ls? It's a shame it was archived but here we are. For this series, we could use mason to install the formatting tools and then, for example, when using lspconfig, just pass the gofumpt setting to gopls. just a thought :) thanks for the great series of setup videos!!

[@dreamsofcode]

I will be redoing it soon! For the mean time you can drop in none-ls instead as it's a drop in replacement!

[@seandougherty3022]

@@dreamsofcode that's great to hear. yeah i was looking at none-ls and was going to attempt the drop-in and go from there :) looking forward to the redo. thank you for all of your hard work, it's appreciated.

[@frostfire6591]

Been using goland for go but wanted to switch over to nvim. The only problem I’ve had is the syntax highlighting being the same for vars and package names, and was wondering if anyone had a solution.

[@theLowestPointInMyLife]

NvChad is totally different out-of-the-box now just 2 months later.

[@esra_erimez]

I wish this was easier to setup. A meta package might be in order.

[@dreamsofcode]

This is a good idea!

[@JOker-iz9nk]

Hey, thanks for this :) Could you do one for Python?

[@dreamsofcode]

I can!

[@JOker-iz9nk]

@@dreamsofcode Hell yeah awesome, getting into neovim has been soooo much easier with all your videos. Cheers! :)

[@srky19]

l would also like to see this kind of setup for python! It' s so clean and fast!

[@AScribblingTurtle]

Man, you make it look so simple. I'm struggeling to wrap my head around all of this stuff. Between `zero-lsp` `lspconfig` `null-ls` its all just a confusing mess. The documentations are either none existing, to sparse or to detailed for my ADHD brain to handle. nvChad puts its own config layer on top of all of that and provides no usable documentation either. (Although their Website looks pretty, I'll give them that) I was able to follow your Video until the "Auto Format on Save" part. that one just does not want to work. No errors, nothing. Functions and go packages are installed. Running the :lua vim.lsp.buf.format() command by hand works fine too. In addition some of my projects need specific build flags. how can I set these on a per Project basis? I'm concidering going back to VSCode but their VIM-Support sucks. Maybe learning VIM was a mistake after all. Sorry for crying my heart out. I've wasted all day. trying to make this somehow work and I just don't want anymore.

[@naranyala_dev]

Alacritty + tmux + AstroNvim BONUS: Rust based cli tools, like exa and bat

[@fabianfranco3132]

thanks man, can you make a nvim for beginners? Very good content

[@dreamsofcode]

This is a great idea!

[@GuillaumeMaka]

Do you have a nvim setup for SQL (PL/SQL, Transact-SQL, Store Procedure....). Thanks for the great content and resources on nvim.

[@dreamsofcode]

I do not yet! But I can add it to the backlog

[@dmitrygavrovsky5938]

@@dreamsofcode Please add to backlog as it's only stuff stopping me from switching to neovim completely

[@krige]

7:05 Debugging is misspelled on the video section tooltip

[@TheBurntHoney]

Isnt null ls archived?

[@0xAlx]

Is to possible to make a video for Java / Kotlin ? (Kotlin would be better :P ), awesome video BTW

[@MrDevianceh]

Would you do one for typescript/react?

[@dreamsofcode]

I absolutely will

[@petilove]

What shortcut are you using in order to create a new file inside of neovim? thanx

[@dreamsofcode]

It's the `a` key!