To Commit or Not to Commit the Vendor Directory in Go: Best Practice?

Committing the vendor Directory: Best Practice or Post-Checkout Necessity?

When leveraging dep for dependency management in Go projects, the question arises: should the vendor directory be committed to version control? This decision ultimately depends on the developer's preferences, balancing the benefits and drawbacks of each approach.

Pros of Committing the vendor Directory:

• Guarantees reproducible builds by preventing modifications to dependencies' upstream histories.
• Eliminates the need for a separate dep ensure step after cloning or other repository updates.

Cons of Committing the vendor Directory:

• Potentially larger repository size, especially with dependencies that have significant file sizes.
• PR diffs may include changes to vendor files when Gopkg.lock is modified, though these files are typically hidden on GitHub by default.

Alternative Option: Executing dep ensure After Checkout

Alternatively, instead of committing the vendor directory, one can execute dep ensure after checking out a repository. This approach requires an additional step but may be preferable due to:

• Smaller repository size, as dependency files are not stored in history.
• Simplified PR diffs, as changes in Gopkg.lock do not trigger modifications to vendor files in the repository.

Ultimately, the decision of whether to commit the vendor directory or rely on dep ensure for synchronization is a matter of preference. Best practice dictates that it is essential to consider the pros and cons outlined above when making this decision.

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