golang-safety

The `golang-safety` skill is designed to help developers write defensive and reliable Go code, preventing common runtime errors such as panics, silent data corruption, and subtle logic bugs. It focuses on areas where Go's language semantics can lead to unexpected behavior, including nil pointer handling, slice and map aliasing, concurrent map access, float comparison issues, and zero-value design pitfalls. By emphasizing defensive coding practices, this skill aims to reduce crashes and unintended side effects in normal, non-adversarial code. It complements security-focused approaches by addressing mistakes programmers may make themselves rather than attacks from outside sources.

Key features of the skill include guidance on using generics safely, performing type assertions without risk, understanding the nuances of nil interfaces, ensuring safe slice and map operations, returning defensive copies from exported functions, and correctly managing resource lifecycles using `defer` and `sync.Once`. It also provides best practices for integer and float arithmetic, designing useful zero values, and handling concurrency safely. The skill is compatible with Golang projects and AI coding agents like Claude Code, helping developers catch common pitfalls before they become runtime issues.

This skill is particularly useful for Go engineers, code reviewers, and anyone maintaining production-grade Go code who wants to enforce safety and correctness. It is ideal when encountering nil-related panics, subtle bugs in slice or map handling, numeric conversion overflow risks, or challenges in designing zero-value-safe data structures. Users seeking to improve code robustness and prevent latent crashes in their Go applications will find this skill valuable, especially when reviewing or refactoring code for safety and reliability.