go-best-practices

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• SKILL.md

SKILL.md (first lines)

# Go best practices

## 1. No reflection when the types are known

When the code knows the types at compile time, write plain code. `reflect` is many times slower, skips the compiler's type checks and hides which fields are used.

- compare two fields with `a.Name == b.Name`, not `reflect.DeepEqual(a.Name, b.Name)`
- compare structs whose fields are all comparable with `a == b`
- compare slices and maps with `slices.Equal` and `maps.Equal`
- branch on a type with a type switch, not `reflect.TypeOf` or `reflect.ValueOf(x).Kind()`
- write a shared function with type parameters, not `any` plus `reflect`
- copy a struct with assignment, not by walking its fields

Use `reflect` only when the type is unknown until runtime and nothing else works: a serializer, a struct-tag parser, an ORM mapper. In tests, `reflect.DeepEqual` and `cmp.Diff` are fine.

From amoniacou/agent-skills, MIT.

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