Golang Error HandlingSAFE

A collection of Agent Skills Standard and Best Practice for Programming Languages, Frameworks that help our AI Agent follow best practies on frameworks and programming laguages

The instruction file, verbatim from the audited commit — this is the text the model reads, and the surface the audit's instruction layer examines. Quoted here so you can judge it without cloning anything.

---
name: golang-error-handling
description: Standards for error wrapping, checking, and definition in Golang. Use when wrapping errors, defining sentinel errors, or handling errors idiomatically in Go.
metadata:
  triggers:
    files:
    - 'fmt.Errorf'
    - 'errors.Is'
    - 'errors.As'
    keywords:
    - error wrapping
    - sentinel error
    - error handling
---
# Golang Error Handling Standards

## **Priority: P0 (CRITICAL)**

## Principles

- **Errors Values**: Handle them like any other value.
- **Handle Once**: Log OR Return. Never Log AND Return (creates duplicate logs).
- **Add Context**: Don't return `err` bubble up. Wrap it with context: `fmt.Errorf("failed to open file: %w", err)`.
- **Use Standard Lib**: Go 1.13+ `errors` package (`Is`, `As`, `Unwrap`) sufficient. Avoid `pkg/errors` (deprecated).

## Guidelines

- **Sentinel Errors**: Expoted, fixed errors (`io.EOF`, `sql.ErrNoRows`). Use `errors.Is(err, io.EOF)`.
- **Error Types**: Structs implementing `error`. Use `errors.As(err, &target)`.
- **Panic**: Only for unrecoverable startup errors.

## Anti-Patterns

- **No bare return err**: Wrap with `fmt.Errorf("context: %w", err)` to preserve call chain.
- **No string error checks**: Use `errors.Is`/`errors.As`; string comparison brittle.
- **No swallowed errors**: Never assign errors to `_`; always handle or propagate.

## References

- [Error Wrapping Patterns](references/error-wrapping.md)

SAFEgrade B · trust 89/100 Nothing in the source contradicts what it says it does. Grade A is reserved for packages that have also passed the behavioural sandbox.

What the source does

Filesystem

none-observed

Network

none-observed

Shell

none-observed

Dependencies

pinned

Secrets in source

none-found

Findings (0)

No findings outside the package's declared scope.

Gates applied: no_behavioural_pass.