🔥 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!

🚀 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)

📦 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                              File extension to watch (comma-separated) (default: ".go")
   --ignore value                                     File paths to ignore (comma-separated) (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: 1000)
   --args value, -a value [ --args value, -a value ]  Arguments to pass to go build or go run
   --flags value, -f value                            Build flags to pass to go build
   --help, -h                                         show help

⚙️ Configuration File (gohot.yaml)

# gohot.yaml
path: ./
ext: .go,.yaml
ignore: .git,vendor
entry: main.go
out: ./appb
debounce: 500
args:
   - GOEXPERIMENT=jsonv2
flags:
   - ldflags="-w -s"

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

🚨 Validation

Before starting, gohot validates:

Watched path exists
File extensions start with .
Main file (if set) exists and is a .go file
Debounce is positive
Output path is not a directory

🧑‍💻 Contributing

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