go/gopls/doc/vscode.md

VSCode

Use the VSCode-Go plugin, with the following configuration:

"go.useLanguageServer": true,
"[go]": {
    "editor.formatOnSave": true,
    "editor.codeActionsOnSave": {
        "source.organizeImports": true,
    },
    // Optional: Disable snippets, as they conflict with completion ranking.
    "editor.snippetSuggestions": "none",
},
"[go.mod]": {
    "editor.formatOnSave": true,
    "editor.codeActionsOnSave": {
        "source.organizeImports": true,
    },
},
"gopls": {
     // Add parameter placeholders when completing a function.
    "usePlaceholders": true,

    // If true, enable additional analyses with staticcheck.
    // Warning: This will significantly increase memory usage.
    "staticcheck": false,
}

VSCode will complain about the "gopls" settings, but they will still work. Once we have a consistent set of settings, we will make the changes in the VSCode plugin necessary to remove the errors.

If you encounter problems with import organization, please try setting a higher code action timeout (any value greater than 750ms), for example:

"[go]": {
  "editor.codeActionsOnSaveTimeout": 3000
}

To enable more detailed debug information, add the following to your VSCode settings:

"go.languageServerFlags": [
    "-rpc.trace", // for more detailed debug logging
    "serve",
    "--debug=localhost:6060", // to investigate memory usage, see profiles
],

See the section on command line arguments for more information about what these do, along with other things like --logfile=auto that you might want to use.

You can disable features through the "go.languageServerExperimentalFeatures" section of the config. An example of a feature you may want to disable is "documentLink", which opens pkg.go.dev links when you click on import statements in your file.

Build tags

build tags will not be picked from go.buildTags configuration section, instead they should be specified as part of theGOFLAGS environment variable:

"go.toolsEnvVars": {
    "GOFLAGS": "-tags=<yourtag>"
}

VSCode Remote Development with gopls

You can also make use of gopls with the VSCode Remote Development extensions to enable full-featured Go development on a lightweight client machine, while connected to a more powerful server machine.

First, install the Remote Development extension of your choice, such as the Remote - SSH extension. Once you open a remote session in a new window, open the Extensions pane (Ctrl+Shift+X) and you will see several different sections listed. In the "Local - Installed" section, navigate to the Go extension and click "Install in SSH: hostname".

Once you have reloaded VSCode, you will be prompted to install gopls and other Go-related tools. After one more reload, you should be ready to develop remotely with VSCode and the Go extension.