🔥 gohot

gohot is a hot-reloading tool for Go projects that watches your source files and automatically recompiles and restarts your application when files change.

Ideal for fast development cycles in the Go ecosystem — no more manual builds or restarts!

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🚀 Features

• 🔁 Auto-reload on .go file changes (or any extension)
• 📂 Directory and file extension filtering
• 🧠 Smart CPU usage: uses go run or compiles to binary based on your system
• ⚙️ Config file support (gohot.yaml)
• ✅ Config validation before execution
• ⏱️ Debounce file system events to avoid noisy reloads
• 🎯 Cross-platform (Linux, macOS, Windows)

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📦 Installation

go install github.com/ableinc/gohot@latest

or clone locally

git clone https://github.com/yourname/gohot
cd gohot
go build -ldflags="-w -s" -o gohot ./gohot.go

🧠 Usage

NAME:
   gohot - Auto-reload Go apps when source files change

USAGE:
   gohot [global options] command [command options]

COMMANDS:
   init, i  create default gohot.yaml file
   version  Print the version number
   help, h  Shows a list of commands or help for one command

GLOBAL OPTIONS:
   --path value, -p value                                 Directory to watch (default: "./")
   --ext value, -e value [ --ext value, -e value ]        File extension to watch (default: ".go & .yaml")
   --ignore value, -i value [ --ignore value, -i value ]  File paths to ignore (default: ".git & vendor")
   --out value, -o value                                  Output binary name when compiling (default: "./appb")
   --entry value, -m value                                Main Go file entry point (default: "main.go")
   --debounce value, -d value                             Debounce time in milliseconds (default: 500)
   --envs value, -v value [ --envs value, -v value ]      Environment variables to set before go build or go run
   --env_file value, --env value                          Path to .env file to load environment variables from
   --flags value, -f value [ --flags value, -f value ]    Build flags to pass to go build
   --cli value, -c value [ --cli value, -c value ]        CLI arguments to pass to the compiled binary
   --help, -h                                             show help

⚙️ Example Configuration File (gohot.yaml)

# gohot.yaml
path: ./
ext:
  - .go
  - .yaml
ignore:
  - .git
  - vendor
entry: main.go
out: ./appb
debounce: 500
envs:
  - GOEXPERIMENT=jsonv2
env_file: .env
flags:
  - ldflags="-w -s"
cli:
  - verbose

Supported Formats

• gohot.yaml

• gohot.yml

Files are loaded automatically from:

• Current directory

• ~/.gohot/gohot.yaml

CLI flags override config file values.

Examples

Watch a directory and recompile a binary

gohot --path ./server --entry main.go --out ./bin/server

Use only go run for simple dev apps

gohot --entry ./main.go

Custom file types (e.g. .go, .html, .env)

gohot --ext .go,.html,.env

Load environment variables from a .env file

gohot --env_file .env
# or use the short alias
gohot --env .env

Combine .env file with additional CLI environment variables (CLI envs override file)

gohot --env_file .env --envs DEBUG=true

🚨 Validation

Before starting, gohot validates:

• Watched path exists

• File extensions start with .

• Main file (if set) exists and is a .go file

• Env file (if set) exists

• Debounce is positive

• Output path is not a directory

🧑‍💻 Contributing

Pull requests are welcome! Please follow idiomatic Go style and document your changes.