Best practices for installing a Go development environment on macOS (Apple Silicon)

Background

Recently I got my own MacBook Pro. After getting a new machine, the first thing was naturally to set up the development environment. To make it convenient to check configuration details later, I decided to record these processes.

Note: My machine is Apple Silicon (ARM64) architecture, but this guide is a general best practice for installing a local Go development environment on macOS.

1. Install Go

Installing Go via Homebrew is the most convenient and quickest way:

brew install go

Reminder

Before running the installation command, please make sure your network connection is working properly (or the terminal proxy has been configured) to reduce unnecessary waiting time!

II. Configure the Environment

After installation is complete, we need to configure environment variables, which relates to where subsequent code is stored and how dependencies are downloaded.

2.1 Create a custom GOPATH and related directories

By default, GOPATH is $HOME/go To keep the home directory tidy, I habitually customize the workspace directory:

mkdir -p $HOME/workspace/go/{src,pkg,bin}

Note

If you do not plan to modify the default GOPATH path, you only need to execute mkdir -p $HOME/go/{src,pkg,bin} That will suffice.

2.2 Configure environment variables

For ease of management, it is recommended to write the following configuration directly into your shell configuration file (such as ~/.zshrc).

1. Configure the GOPATH environment variable

export GOPATH=$HOME/workspace/go

2. Take GOPATH/bin appended to the system's PATH In environment variables

This way you pass go install The installed binary tools can then be called directly globally:

export PATH=$PATH:$GOPATH/bin

2.3 Configure Proxy environment variables (essential for users in China)

Due to network reasons, domestic users who get stuck when pulling dependencies need to configure the Go module proxy:

export GO111MODULE=on
export GOPROXY=https://goproxy.cn,direct

Note

Only for mainland China users who cannot normally access the international internet, you may need to configure this item. If you have a global proxy environment, you can skip this step.

III. Verify Installation

After completing the above configuration, reload your shell configuration file:

source ~/.zshrc

Then check the Go version to confirm that the installation and configuration have taken effect:

go version
# Output example: go version go1.27.4 darwin/arm64