Go Backend

The go backend builds Go command-line packages with go install. Use the import path of the executable package, which may include /cmd/TOOL or a major version suffix such as /v4. Libraries belong in your application's go.mod.

The code for this is inside the mise repository at ./src/backend/go.rs.

Dependencies

Install Go and the tool in the current project. The configured Go installation is available while mise builds the dependent tool:

mise use go@1.26 go:github.com/DarthSim/hivemind
mise exec -- hivemind --help

This records both tools in mise.toml; add -g for global configuration. Source builds may also need Git, a C compiler, or native libraries, depending on the package and whether it uses cgo.

Usage

List available versions with mise ls-remote go:github.com/DarthSim/hivemind. To select one, run mise use go:github.com/DarthSim/hivemind@VERSION, replacing VERSION with a listed release. mise writes the resulting executable into its own installation directory instead of your ordinary GOBIN.

Version discovery and release dates

For latest, mise first queries the module proxy or go list directly for the latest stable release. This avoids listing every version and fetching a release date for each one, which can time out on modules with many tags.

Commands such as mise ls-remote and version requests such as @1 still use the full version list. To keep these lookups fast, mise fetches release dates for only the newest 100 versions through a module proxy, or the newest 10 through go list. All versions remain in the list; versions outside these limits have no release date.

A version with no release date is still checked against minimum_release_age: before mise settles on one, it reads that single version's date and moves further back while the answer is newer than the cutoff. A cutoff deep enough to reach past the dated versions therefore costs one query per version it skips, which can make the first resolution of a module with many releases noticeably slower through go list. The direct latest query includes a release date, and if that release is too recent mise falls back to the full list and dates candidates from there.

Unreachable sources

If reading a version's date fails outright — an unreachable proxy, a VCS host that times out — mise warns and allows that version rather than failing the install. A version can therefore still slip past the cutoff on a bad network, and the warning is what tells you it happened.

Private modules

Private modules use Go's normal VCS authentication. Export GOPRIVATE, or define it in mise's [env] configuration, so mise delegates version discovery to Go instead of querying the public module proxy itself. Values set only with go env -w are not read by mise when choosing the discovery path:

[env]
GOPRIVATE = "github.com/acme/*"

Go uses GOPRIVATE as the default for both GONOPROXY and GONOSUMDB. If you configure those variables separately, set each one according to the proxy and checksum-database privacy you need.

Pinned versions

You can also pin a specific Go module version, including an unreleased pseudo-version:

[tools]
"go:github.com/grafana/oats" = "v0.7.1-0.20260703092802-96201f1b8136"

If you need to resolve an unreleased revision directly from VCS instead of the module proxy, combine the pinned version with install_env:

[tools]
"go:github.com/grafana/oats" = { version = "v0.7.1-0.20260703092802-96201f1b8136", install_env = { GOPROXY = "direct", GONOSUMDB = "github.com/grafana/oats" } }

Tool Options

The following tool-options are available for the go backend—these go in [tools] in mise.toml.

install_env

Set environment variables for the go install command. mise still sets GOBIN to the tool install directory after applying install_env. Put GOPRIVATE in [env] as shown above when it must also affect version discovery.

[tools]
"go:github.com/acme/my-tool" = { version = "latest", install_env = { GOPRIVATE = "github.com/acme/*" } }

tags

Specify Go build tags (passed as go install -tags):

[tools]
"go:github.com/golang-migrate/migrate/v4/cmd/migrate" = { version = "latest", tags = "postgres" }
# equivalent array form:
# "go:github.com/golang-migrate/migrate/v4/cmd/migrate" = { version = "latest", tags = ["postgres", "mysql"] }

Troubleshooting

• Package is not a main package: use the executable's import path, not the repository root or a library package.
• Private module lookup fails: check exported GOPRIVATE and your Go/Git credentials; mise's GitHub token is not a substitute for VCS authentication.
• Go version or compiler error: use a toolchain supported by the package and install any required native build dependencies.