gopt

go-optimizations

A collection of low-level, performance-oriented optimizations for Go focused on reducing allocations or CPU time in hot paths.

This package intentionally leverages the unsafe package and other non-idiomatic techniques where they provide measurable performance benefits. As a result, correctness, safety, and portability are the responsibility of the consumer.

If you need safety, simplicity, or long-term stability, this package is likely not appropriate.

Important Warning

This package uses unsafe extensively.

By using this library, you acknowledge that:

• APIs may violate Go’s memory safety guarantees if misused
• Incorrect usage can lead to undefined behavior, memory corruption, or hard-to-debug crashes
• Behavior may change across Go versions, architectures, or GC implementations

If you are unsure whether an optimization is safe for your use case, do not use it.

Goals

• Reduce heap allocations
• Reduce CPU cycles in hot paths
• Avoid unnecessary copying
• Provide opt-in, explicit performance trade-offs
• Keep all unsafe behavior well-documented and isolated

This is not a general-purpose utility library. Each optimization targets a specific, measurable bottleneck.

Versioning & Compatibility

• Go version compatibility is best-effort
• Minor Go releases may change runtime behavior and break assumptions
• No backward-compatibility guarantees are provided

Pin the module version and re-run benchmarks and tests when upgrading Go.

Testing Recommendations

When using this package:

• Test under load
• Run with -race
• Add regression tests around every call site
• Validate behavior across Go versions
• Prefer benchmarks over intuition

If an optimization does not produce a measurable improvement in your workload, remove it.