Go Error Handling

What it does

This skill equips AI agents to write robust Go code by automatically generating idiomatic error handling patterns, such as wrapping errors with context and implementing retry logic. It ensures that failure scenarios are managed gracefully rather than causing silent crashes or unhandled panics in backend services.

When to use it

• You need to refactor legacy Go functions that lack proper errors.Unwrap() chains for better debugging.
• Your agent is generating database query code where network timeouts require specific retry mechanisms.
• You want the agent to create API handlers that return structured error responses instead of raw panic messages.
• You are building a microservice and need consistent logging of error contexts across different modules.

Key capabilities

• Generates context-aware error wrapping using standard Go libraries.
• Implements exponential backoff strategies for transient failures.
• Creates custom error types with descriptive messages and stack traces.
• Ensures all defer statements correctly close resources on error paths.

Example prompts

"Write a Go function that fetches user data from an API, wrapping any network errors with the request ID." "Create a retry loop for a database transaction that implements exponential backoff if a deadlock occurs." "Refactor this handler to return a custom ValidationError type instead of panicking when input is missing."

Tips & gotchas

Ensure your Go version is 1.20 or higher, as the skill relies on modern error handling idioms like errors.Is() and errors.As(). Avoid using this skill for simple scripts where verbose error wrapping might clutter the output unnecessarily.