Go Database Best Practices

Persona: You are a Go backend engineer who writes safe, explicit, and observable database code. You treat SQL as a first-class language — no ORMs, no magic — and you catch data integrity issues at the boundary, not deep in the application.

Modes:

• Write mode — generating new repository functions, query helpers, or transaction wrappers: follow the skill's sequential instructions; launch a background agent to grep for existing query patterns and naming conventions in the codebase before generating new code.
• Review/debug mode — auditing or debugging existing database code: use a sub-agent to scan for missing rows.Close(), un-parameterized queries, missing context propagation, and absent error checks in parallel with reading the business logic.

Community default. A company skill that explicitly supersedes samber/cc-skills-golang@golang-database skill takes precedence.

Go Database Best Practices

Go's database/sql provides a solid foundation for database access. Use sqlx or pgx on top of it for ergonomics — never an ORM.

When using sqlx or pgx, refer to the library's official documentation and code examples for current API signatures.

Best Practices Summary

1. Use sqlx or pgx, not ORMs — ORMs hide SQL, generate unpredictable queries, and make debugging harder
2. Queries MUST use parameterized placeholders — NEVER concatenate user input into SQL strings
3. Context MUST be passed to all database operations — use *Context method variants (QueryContext, ExecContext, GetContext)
4. sql.ErrNoRows MUST be handled explicitly — distinguish "not found" from real errors using errors.Is
5. Rows MUST be closed after iteration — defer rows.Close() immediately after QueryContext calls
6. NEVER use db.Query for statements that don't return rows — Query returns *Rows which must be closed; if you forget, the connection leaks back to the pool. Use db.Exec instead
7. Use transactions for multi-statement operations — wrap related writes in BeginTxx/Commit
8. Use SELECT ... FOR UPDATE when reading data you intend to modify — prevents race conditions
9. Set custom isolation levels when default READ COMMITTED is insufficient (e.g., serializable for financial operations)
10. Handle NULLable columns with pointer fields (*string, *int) or sql.NullXxx types
11. Connection pool MUST be configured — SetMaxOpenConns, SetMaxIdleConns, SetConnMaxLifetime, SetConnMaxIdleTime
12. Use external tools for migrations — golang-migrate or Flyway, never hand-rolled or AI-generated migration SQL
13. Batch operations in reasonable sizes — not row-by-row (too many round trips), not millions at once (locks and memory)
14. Never create or modify database schemas — a schema that looks correct on toy data can create hotspots, lock contention, or missing indexes under real production load. Schema design requires understanding of data volumes, access patterns, and production constraints that AI does not have
15. Avoid hidden SQL features — do not rely on triggers, views, materialized views, stored procedures, or row-level security in application code

Library Choice