gobug

The friendliest Go error explainer around. Run your code, and instead of a raw compiler dump or a bare stack trace, get a plain-English explanation and a fix — right next to your code.

v0.1 is a native desktop "run area": paste or write Go on the left, hit Run, see output (and, on failure, a real explanation) on the right. No hosted sandbox, no untrusted code execution risk — it shells out to your own local go toolchain, same as typing go run yourself.

Why this exists

Go already has excellent tooling for finding problems: go build, go vet, golangci-lint. What's missing is a good layer for explaining them to someone who doesn't yet read Go compiler output fluently. gobug is that layer — not a rival static analyzer, a translator on top of the tools that already exist.

v0.2 scope

• Single-file "run area" — write/paste Go, click Run, line-numbered editor
• Offline rule-based explain engine covering common beginner errors: undefined identifiers, type mismatches, unused imports/variables, missing return, nil pointer panics, index-out-of-range panics — no API key needed
• BYOK AI fallback: for errors the rule set doesn't recognize, add your own Anthropic API key in Settings (the gear icon) and gobug will ask Claude to explain it. Only the error message and a small window of surrounding source are sent — never the whole file. The key is stored locally in your OS config dir (~/.config/gobug/config.json on Linux/Mac, %APPDATA%\gobug\config.json on Windows), never in this repo. Model is configurable in Settings if the default (claude-sonnet-4-5) is ever renamed/retired — check https://docs.claude.com for current IDs.

Not yet built (roadmap, not promises)

• Piping golangci-lint output through the same explain layer
• Proper syntax highlighting instead of a plain (line-numbered) textarea
• Multi-file / whole-package support instead of single-file snippets

Download

Prebuilt binaries for Windows, macOS, and Linux are attached to each GitHub Release — no need to build from source unless you want to.

macOS note: the binary isn't code-signed (that costs an Apple Developer account), so Gatekeeper will block it on first launch. Right-click the app → Open, once, to bypass that.

Building it

Clone it first:

git clone https://github.com/hotgrin/gobug.git
cd gobug

Prerequisites: Go 1.22+, Node.js (for Wails' internal tooling, even though this frontend has no npm build step), and the Wails CLI:

go install github.com/wailsapp/wails/v2/cmd/wails@latest

Then, from this directory:

go mod tidy       # resolves the exact Wails version for your platform
wails dev         # live dev mode
wails build        # produces a standalone binary in build/bin
                    # (.exe on Windows, no extension on Linux/Mac)

On Windows, Wails apps need WebView2 (pre-installed on Windows 10/11 in almost all cases — Wails will prompt if it's missing).

Contributing

The rule set is intentionally small and grows from real-world error messages, not guesses. See CONTRIBUTING.md — adding a new rule is a five-minute job. Version history is in CHANGELOG.md.

Distribution plan (once v0.1 feels solid)

Same playbook as goscan: GitHub release with cross-platform binaries, submit to Awesome-Go, post to dev.to and Show HN under #golang, drop it in Gopher Slack's #showcase. Open source, BYOK where AI is involved, MIT license.