5. First Local Program

1

Navigate to your workspace

cd ~/workspace
# Or wherever you keep your code

2

Create the directory

mkdir hellogo
cd hellogo

3

Initialize the module

Run one of the following depending on your remote provider.

GitHub

go mod init github.com/yourusername/hellogo

Replace yourusername with your actual GitHub username.

GitLab

No remote yet

(Alternatively, the module command can be written generically as go mod init {REMOTE}/{USERNAME}/hellogo where {REMOTE} is your preferred remote source provider—e.g., github.com—and {USERNAME} is your Git username.)

4

Verify the go.mod file

cat go.mod

Expected output (version may differ depending on your Go installation):

module github.com/yourusername/hellogo

go 1.25.1

5

Run Boot.dev CLI tests

Make sure you're in the hellogo directory, then run:

bootdev test

Boot.dev CLI: https://github.com/bootdotdev/bootdev

What you just did

• Created a directory — hellogo is your project folder

• Initialized a module — go mod init created the go.mod file

• Declared the module path — tells Go where this module "lives"

• Verified it worked — cat go.mod shows the file was created

Your project structure now

~/workspace/
└── hellogo/
    └── go.mod

Common issues

Issue: "go: cannot find main module"

• Make sure you're inside the hellogo directory when running commands.

Issue: "command not found: go"

• Go isn't installed or not in your PATH.

Issue: Wrong module path

• Make sure you replaced {REMOTE} and {USERNAME} with actual values.

• Example: github.com/johnsmith/hellogo instead of {REMOTE}/{USERNAME}/hellogo.