Go / godoc Docs

A godoc() tab draws a Go module's documentation from its source: package comments, exported constants, variables, functions, types, methods and fields, and examples. It sits beside your guides and other references, and is searched and exported with them.

The Scafld Go API is one, built this way.

When to use it

Your Go reference lives only on pkg.go.dev, and you want it in your own documentation
You want Go symbols in the site's search, llms.txt and llms-full.txt
You want guides, a changelog, OpenAPI, MCP and Go reference in one static site

Go's own source, doc comments, examples and toolchain are the source of truth: there is no need to route Go through Doxygen.

A Go tab

import { defineConfig, godoc, markdown } from "sourcey";

export default defineConfig({
  name: "My Go Project",
  navigation: {
    tabs: [
      {
        tab: "Documentation",
        slug: "",
        source: markdown({
          groups: [
            { group: "Getting Started", pages: ["introduction", "quickstart"] },
          ],
        }),
      },
      {
        tab: "Go API",
        slug: "go",
        source: godoc({ module: ".", packages: ["./..."], includeTests: true }),
      },
    ],
  },
});

module is the module's folder, holding go.mod. packages takes the patterns go list does, so ./... is every package beneath the module.

Option	Default	Meaning
`module`	The config's folder	The module's folder
`packages`	`["./..."]`	Package patterns
`mode`	`"auto"`	`"live"` runs Go when the site builds; `"snapshot"` reads a committed snapshot; `"auto"` runs Go where it is installed and reads the snapshot where it is not
`snapshot`		The committed snapshot, for `"snapshot"` and `"auto"`
`includeTests`	`true`	Include examples from `*_test.go` files
`includeUnexported`	`false`	Include unexported symbols
`hideUndocumented`	`false`	Leave packages with no package comment out of the navigation
`exclude`		Import path prefixes to leave out
`goEnv`		`GOOS`, `GOARCH` and build tags to read the module with, the same on every machine
`sourceBasePath`		The module's path within its repository, for source links

For the common case, name the module alone: godoc(".") reads every package, examples included, in "auto" mode.

Without Go on the build machine

Write a snapshot where Go is installed and commit it:

npx sourcey godoc --module . --packages './...' --out docs/godoc.json

source: godoc({ snapshot: "./godoc.json", mode: "snapshot" }),

A snapshot suits static hosts, sealed CI jobs and repositories that want the same output on every machine. See sourcey godoc.

Without Node

Go-only teams can build a site with sourcey-godoc, without installing Node:

go install github.com/sourcey/sourcey/go/sourcey-godoc/cmd/sourcey-godoc@latest
sourcey-godoc generate --out site

It is the small path for Go alone. The Sourcey site is the path for Go beside guides, specs, a changelog and agent-readable output.

What it draws

An overview of the module
A page for each package, opening with its // Package ... comment
Its exported constants, variables, functions, types, methods and fields
Examples from *_test.go files, with includeTests
Stable anchors for each symbol
Entries in search, the sitemap, llms.txt and llms-full.txt

The result is static HTML, with no service behind it.