gorun

gorun is a tool enabling one to put a "bang line" in the source code of a Go program to run it, or to run such a source code file explicitly. It was created in an attempt to make experimenting with Go more appealing to people used to Python and similar languages which operate most visibly with source code.

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This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 1:49:46 PM UTC.

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HN mentions by year5 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2019-02-11 14:59:14 UTC to 2025-12-30 13:23:32 UTC.

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Period	Start (UTC)	End (exclusive, UTC)	Mentions	Comments
2019	2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	2	2
2020	2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	0	0
2021	2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	0	0
2022	2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	1	1
2023	2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	0	0
2024	2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	0	0
2025	2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC	2	2

What Hacker News says

5 sources

networked·Dec 30, 2025

You can use https://github.com/erning/gorun as a Go script runner. It lets you embed `go.mod` and `go.sum` and have dependencies in Go scripts. This is more verbose than Python's inline script metadata and requires manual management of checksums. gorun caches built binaries, so scripts start quickly after the first time. Example: #! /usr/bin/env gorun // // go.mod >>> // module foo // go 1.22 // require github.com/fatih/color v1.16.0 // require github.com/mattn/go-colorable v0.1.13 // require github.com/mattn/go-isatty v0.0.20 // require golang.org/x/sys v0.14.0 // <<< go.mod // // go.sum >>> // github.com/fatih/color v1.16.0 h1:zmkK9Ngbjj+K0yRhTVONQh1p/HknKYSlNT+vZCzyokM= // github.com/fatih/color v1.16.0/go.mod h1:fL2Sau1YI5c0pdGEVCbKQbLXB6edEj1ZgiY4NijnWvE= // github.com/mattn/go-colorable v0.1.13 h1:fFA4W

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ZxdEF4tXPZVKMLwD8oUnCTTo08duU7wxecdEvA= // github.com/mattn/go-colorable v0.1.13/go.mod h1:7S9/ev0klgBDR4GtXTXX8a3vIGJpMovkB8vQcUbaXHg= // github.com/mattn/go-isatty v0.0.16/go.mod h1:kYGgaQfpe5nmfYZH+SKPsOc2e4SrIfOl2e/yFXSvRLM= // github.com/mattn/go-isatty v0.0.20 h1:xfD0iDuEKnDkl03q4limB+vH+GxLEtL/jb4xVJSWWEY= // github.com/mattn/go-isatty v0.0.20/go.mod h1:W+V8PltTTMOvKvAeJH7IuucS94S2C6jfK/D7dTCTo3Y= // golang.org/x/sys v0.0.0-20220811171246-fbc7d0a398ab/go.mod h1:oPkhp1MJrh7nUepCBck5+mAzfO9JrbApNNgaTdGDITg= // golang.org/x/sys v0.6.0/go.mod h1:oPkhp1MJrh7nUepCBck5+mAzfO9JrbApNNgaTdGDITg= // golang.org/x/sys v0.14.0 h1:Vz7Qs629MkJkGyHxUlRHizWJRG2j8fbQKjELVSNhy7Q= // golang.org/x/sys v0.14.0/go.mod h1:/VUhepiaJMQUp4+oa/7Zr1D23ma6VTLIYjOOTFZPUcA= // <<< go.sum package main import "github.com/fatih/color" func main() { color.Green("Hello, world!") } The shebang line can be replaced for compatibility with standard Go tooling: /// 2>/dev/null ; gorun "$0" "$@" ; exit $? // // go.mod >>> // ...

In Go away Python

kardianos·May 29, 2025

The author's didn't come out against it; they came out in favor of using it as a programming language first and foremost. Tools like gorun https://github.com/erning/gorun have existing for almost as long as Go has, so if you want to use Go that way, it is easy to do. They recently added in support to do this: go run github.com/kardianos/json/cmd/jsondiff@v1.0.1 Which pulls a tag and runs it directly, which is also kinda cool.

In Run a C# file directly using dotnet run app.cs

mkdirp·Mar 11, 2022

I'll have to check this out properly later. 10 years ago go devs rejected the idea of introducing support hashbangs and now we're left with having to use gorun[0], meaning, people are unlikely to use go for script. I hope the go devs will reconsider. I'd love to be able to use go for scripting. But as it stands, it's a sad state of affairs because you have to rely on hacks. [0] https://github.com/erning/gorun/

In Scripting with Go

atombender·Oct 15, 2019

I'm a fan of Go's "go run". For example, you can do: go run main.go or: go run ./cmd/server When invoked this way, Go compiles your code behind the scenes, but you don't have to create a binary. This means Go lends itself pretty well to ad-hoc scripting or writing small script-like tools. Unfortunately, Go doesn't support shebang lines, but with gorun [1] you can: #!/usr/bin/env gorun package main func main() { println("Hello world!") } [1] https://github.com/erning/gorun

In My Vision of D’s Future

regularfry·Feb 11, 2019

It's basically meaningless when you try to line languages up with that sort of criterion. Go compiles fast enough that you can use it with a wrapper "interpreter": https://github.com/erning/gorun So does C: https://github.com/ryanmjacobs/c So does Haskell: https://stackoverflow.com/a/8676377 So does f#, via `#!/usr/bin/env fsharpi --exec` I think You can compile python: https://github.com/dropbox/pyston You can compile JS: http://enclosejs.com/ I wouldn't be surprised if someone found a way to AOT-compile bash, but I'm not going to bother looking for that. The only criterion I've found which makes some sort of sense is whether the language designers consider "scripting" a use case to actively support and use to drive language features, or if it's a second-class citizen.

In 38% of bugs at Airbnb could have been prevented by using types