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go-delve/delve

📈 Trending★ 24,740GoAudience · developerComplexity · 2/5ActiveLicenseSetup · easy

TLDR

A debugger built for Go that lets you pause programs, step through code, and inspect variables to understand what's happening when things go wrong.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((Delve))
    What it does
      Pause running programs
      Step through code
      Inspect variables
      Understand goroutines
    How to use it
      Command line
      Editor plugins
      VS Code integration
    Why it exists
      Go-specific features
      Handles goroutines
      Understands defer
    Tech stack
      Go language
      MIT licensed

Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Debug a Go web server by pausing execution and inspecting request handling logic.

USE CASE 2

Step through a command-line tool to understand why it's producing incorrect output.

USE CASE 3

Inspect goroutine state to diagnose concurrency bugs in multi-threaded Go programs.

USE CASE 4

Use VS Code's debug interface to set breakpoints and watch variables in real time.

Tech stack

Go

Getting it running

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min
Use freely for any purpose, including commercial use, as long as you keep the copyright notice.

In plain English

Delve is a debugger specifically designed for the Go programming language. A debugger is a tool that lets you pause a running program, step through it line by line, inspect the values of variables at any point, and understand exactly what your code is doing, which is invaluable when something is not working as expected. Delve was built from the ground up to understand Go's unique runtime characteristics, such as goroutines (Go's lightweight threads), defer statements, and closures. Generic debuggers designed for other languages often struggle with these Go-specific concepts, so Delve exists to fill that gap properly. The project's stated goal is to be simple to invoke and to stay out of your way, you are already dealing with a bug, so the last thing you need is a complicated tool. You use Delve from the command line or through an editor plugin. Most major Go development environments, including VS Code, GoLand, and others, integrate with Delve under the hood when you click a debug button. You would reach for Delve directly when you need to debug a Go program, whether that is a web server, a command-line tool, or any other Go application. It is written in Go and licensed under the MIT license.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
How do I set up Delve to debug a Go program from the command line?
Prompt 2
Show me how to use Delve to inspect goroutines and find concurrency bugs in my Go code.
Prompt 3
How do I integrate Delve with VS Code so I can debug with breakpoints and variable inspection?
Prompt 4
What are the key commands in Delve for stepping through code and examining variable values?
Prompt 5
How does Delve handle Go-specific features like defer statements and closures when debugging?
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Generated 2026-05-18 · Model: sonnet-4-6 · Verify against the repo before relying on details.