Go Quick Start

Overview

This guide walks through the default Go flow: scaffold a Gin + GORM + Goose + SQLite project, run it, and verify the health endpoint. Go projects run the CLI as the standalone tristack binary.

Install the CLI

Install the tristack binary for your OS:

1. Scaffold

tristack my-api

Follow the prompts, or skip them and take the defaults completely non-interactively:

tristack my-api --yes

After scaffolding you'll see the reproducible command, which is also saved to tristack.jsonc inside the project.

2. Run it

cd my-api
cp .env.example .env
go mod tidy
air

Open http://localhost:8000/health — you should see {"status":"ok"}.

3. Common commands

go mod tidy        # install dependencies (default package manager)
go run ./cmd/api    # run without the air addon
make build          # compile the binary (Makefile targets: run, test, vet, fmt)
air                # live reload (air addon)
golangci-lint run  # lint (golangci-lint addon)

Database migrations

With Goose, migrations live in migrations/:

go run github.com/pressly/goose/v3/cmd/goose@latest create create_users sql
go run github.com/pressly/goose/v3/cmd/goose@latest up

With golang-migrate, SQL files live in db/migrations/:

go run -tags 'sqlite3' github.com/golang-migrate/migrate/v4/cmd/migrate@latest \
  -path db/migrations -database $DATABASE_URL up

Docker

With the docker addon, run the whole stack in containers:

docker compose up --build

4. Other frameworks

The stack varies by framework — same flow, different router:

5. Reproduce the same stack

Every scaffold prints a reproducible command and stores it in tristack.jsonc:

tristack my-api \
  --language go \
  --framework gin \
  --orm gorm \
  --migrations goose \
  --database sqlite \
  --package-manager go \
  --addons docker air golangci-lint

Or validate it without writing anything:

tristack my-api --yes --dry-run

Next steps

• Project Structure — exactly what gets generated
• CLI Options — every flag
• Compatibility — valid combinations