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7/3/2026
Catching Goroutine Leaks in Go

Catching Goroutine Leaks in Go

Original: Catching Goroutine Leaks in Go Tests With goleak

Short summary

Goroutine leaks—goroutines blocked forever on channel operations—aren't caught by tests or linters, but the Uber-maintained goleak tool detects them automatically. Add goleak.VerifyTestMain() to your test suite to catch leaks before production; when found, the tool provides a detailed stack trace showing where the goroutine was spawned, where it's stuck, and its scheduler state. Fix leaks by adding context cancellation or safe channel patterns.

  • Goroutine leaks aren't caught by standard testing tools; goleak detects them with detailed diagnostics
  • Add three lines of code (goleak.VerifyTestMain) to any test package to catch leaks in CI
  • Fix by using context cancellation or select statements to give blocked goroutines an escape path

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