GoReleaser — Release Engineering for Go Projects

What it is

GoReleaser is an open-source tool that automates the full release pipeline for Go projects. A single goreleaser release command cross-compiles your binary for Linux, macOS, Windows, and ARM, creates archives, generates checksums, builds Docker images, creates Homebrew and Scoop formulas, publishes to GitHub or GitLab Releases, and generates changelogs.

GoReleaser targets Go developers and teams who want repeatable, automated releases without writing custom shell scripts or CI pipeline steps for each artifact type.

How it saves time or tokens

Without GoReleaser, releasing a Go project to multiple platforms requires separate build scripts, archive commands, Docker builds, and package manager formula generators. GoReleaser replaces all of this with a single YAML config file. The snapshot mode lets you test the entire pipeline locally before tagging a real release, catching issues before they hit CI.

How to use

1. Install GoReleaser:

brew install goreleaser

1. Initialize the config in your project root:

goreleaser init

1. Test locally without publishing:

goreleaser release --snapshot --clean

1. Tag and release:

export GITHUB_TOKEN=ghp_xxx
git tag v1.0.0
git push origin v1.0.0
goreleaser release --clean

Example

A .goreleaser.yaml that builds for multiple platforms and creates a Homebrew tap:

builds:
  - env:
      - CGO_ENABLED=0
    goos:
      - linux
      - darwin
      - windows
    goarch:
      - amd64
      - arm64

archives:
  - format: tar.gz
    name_template: '{{ .ProjectName }}_{{ .Os }}_{{ .Arch }}'
    format_overrides:
      - goos: windows
        format: zip

brews:
  - repository:
      owner: myorg
      name: homebrew-tap
    homepage: https://github.com/myorg/myproject
    description: My Go project

changelogs:
  sort: asc
  filters:
    exclude:
      - '^docs:'
      - '^test:'

Related on TokRepo

• DevOps automation tools — CI/CD and release automation
• Coding tools — developer productivity tooling

Common pitfalls

• Forgetting to set CGO_ENABLED=0 for cross-compilation; CGo dependencies break builds on non-native platforms
• Not testing with --snapshot before tagging; a failed release after git push --tags requires manual cleanup on GitHub
• Using GoReleaser Pro features in the open-source version; check the docs for which features require a license