diff --git a/src/cmd/go/internal/vcs/vcs.go b/src/cmd/go/internal/vcs/vcs.go
index 2a88179404..451963db4b 100644
--- a/src/cmd/go/internal/vcs/vcs.go
+++ b/src/cmd/go/internal/vcs/vcs.go
@@ -283,15 +283,13 @@ var vcsGit = &Cmd{
 var scpSyntaxRe = lazyregexp.New(`^(\w+)@([\w.-]+):(.*)$`)
 
 func gitRemoteRepo(vcsGit *Cmd, rootDir string) (remoteRepo string, err error) {
-	cmd := "config remote.origin.url"
-	errParse := errors.New("unable to parse output of git " + cmd)
-	errRemoteOriginNotFound := errors.New("remote origin not found")
+	const cmd = "config remote.origin.url"
 	outb, err := vcsGit.run1(rootDir, cmd, nil, false)
 	if err != nil {
 		// if it doesn't output any message, it means the config argument is correct,
 		// but the config value itself doesn't exist
 		if outb != nil && len(outb) == 0 {
-			return "", errRemoteOriginNotFound
+			return "", errors.New("remote origin not found")
 		}
 		return "", err
 	}
@@ -323,7 +321,7 @@ func gitRemoteRepo(vcsGit *Cmd, rootDir string) (remoteRepo string, err error) {
 			return repoURL.String(), nil
 		}
 	}
-	return "", errParse
+	return "", errors.New("unable to parse output of git " + cmd)
 }
 
 func gitStatus(vcsGit *Cmd, rootDir string) (Status, error) {