Golang equivalent of npm install -g

If I had a compiled Golang program that I wanted to install such that I could run it with a bash command from anywhere on my computer, how would I do that? For example, in nodejs

npm install -g express

Installs express such that I can run the command

express myapp

and express will generate a file directory for a node application called "myapp" in whatever my current directory is. Is there an equivalent command for go? I believe now with the "go install" command you have to be in the directory that contains the executable in order to run it

Thanks in advance!

Update: If you're using Go 1.16, this answer still works, but go install has changed and is now the recommended method for installing executable packages. See Karim's answer for an explanation: https://stackoverflow.com/a/68559728/10490740

Using Go >= 1.11, if your current directory is within a module-based project, or you've set GO111MODULE=on in your environment, go get will not install packages "globally". It will add them to your project's go.mod file instead.

As of Go 1.11.1, setting GO111MODULE=off works to circumvent this behavior:

GO111MODULE=off go get github.com/usr/repo

Basically, by disabling the module feature for this single command, it will install to GOPATH as expected.

Projects not using modules can still go get normally to install binaries to $GOPATH/bin.

There's a lengthy conversation and multiple issues logged about this change in behavior branching from here: golang/go - cmd/go: go get should not add a dependency to go.mod #27643.

Starting with Go >= 1.16 the recommended way to install an executable is to use

go install package@version

For example, go install github.com/fatih/gomodifytags@latest.

Executables (main packages) are installed to the directory named by the GOBIN environment variable, which defaults to $GOPATH/bin or $HOME/go/bin if the GOPATH environment variable is not set. You need to add this directory to your PATH variable to run executables globally. In my case, I've added this line to my ~/.zshrc file. (if you are using bash, add it to the ~/.bash_profile file):

export PATH="$HOME/go/bin:$PATH"

Go team published a blog post about this change, here's the explanation quote:

> We used to recommend go get -u program to install an executable, but this use caused too much confusion with the meaning of go get for adding or changing module version requirements in go.mod.

Refer to go install documentation for more details

As far as I know, there is no direct equivalent to npm install -g. The closest equivalent would not be go install, but go get. From the help page (go help get):

>usage: go get [-d] [-f] [-fix] [-insecure] [-t] [-u] [build flags] [packages]
>
>Get downloads and installs the packages named by the import paths,
along with their dependencies.

By default, go get installs binaries to $GOPATH/bin, so the easiest way to make those binaries callable from everywhere is to add that directory to your $PATH.

For this, put the following line into your .bashrc (or .zshrc, depending on which shell you're using):

export PATH="$PATH:$GOPATH/bin"

<hr />

Alternatively, you could also copy or link the executables to /usr/local/bin:

ln -s $GOPATH/bin/some-binary /usr/local/bin/some-binary

Short solution for Linux users:

1. Use the go get command as usual
2. Add the following lines to .bashrc:

# This is the default GOPATH, you should confirm with the 'go env' command
export GOPATH=$HOME/go
export PATH=$PATH:$GOROOT/bin:$GOPATH/bin

1. Restart terminal or source it. Installed binaries will be available globally.

For Go v1.8+

1. go install package_name@latest

> Caveat: this answer is outdated following the 2020 deprecation of go get. The solution presented here won't work with newer Go runtime installs.

The closest analogue of this in Go would be go get. By default, it will fetch a Go package from a supplied repository URL, and requires a $GOPATH variable to be set in your shell so that Go knows where to store the packages (and subsequently where to find them when compiling code depending on go get-ted packages).

Example syntax:

$ go get github.com/user/repo

The behaviour supplied by npm's -g flag is default, and packages installed using go get are normally available globally.

See go get --help for more information about the command.

As mentioned by @helmbert, adding your $GOPATH to your $PATH is useful if you're installing standalone packages.

if you are using zsh :

first: install your package using :

go install package@version

then , you edit your .zshrc file

nano ~/.zshrc

Add this line to the end of .zshrc file :

export PATH="$HOME/go/bin:$PATH"

last but not least :

source ~/.zshrc

then open a new terminal and execute your command

TL;DR at the bottom. I'm going to walk you through how I came to this conclusion, and why the more obvious solutions don't work.

Upon seeing this question, I thought "If I could set root's GOPATH=/usr, it would install things in /usr/bin/ and /usr/src!"

So I tried the obvious thing:

1. Add GOPATH=/usr to root's .bashrc.
   And it worked!
   Sort of.
   Not really.
   Turns out, sudo doesn't execute root's .bashrc. For "security" or something like that.

2. Do env_set or something in /etc/sudoers
   Turns out, /etc/sudoers can only remove environment variables. There's no env_set directive.
   ^{(As far as I can find)}

3. Dig through man sudoers.
   Where does sudo get it's default set of environment variables from?
   Well, the first one in the list is /etc/environment, so that's the one I used.

sudo echo "GOPATH=/usr" >> /etc/environment
sudo go get <repo>

Binaries will be put in /usr/bin, and sources will be put in /usr/src.

Running go as non-root will use GOPATH the "normal" way.

If you don't have go installed, you may use the gobinaries. it builds an on-demand binary of the project from github repo.

The command to install the go package would be:

curl -sf https://gobinaries.com/rakyll/hey | sh