To Commit or Not to Commit the Go Vendor Directory: Reproducible Builds vs. Repository Size?

Vendoring Practices for Go Dependency Management

In Go development, managing dependencies is crucial. With the dep tool, the question arises as to whether committing the vendor directory to version control is best practice.

Committing the vendor Directory

The official dep FAQ addresses this question:

Pros:

• Reproducible builds: Ensures consistent builds regardless of upstream changes, such as renames, deletions, or history overwrites.
• Reduced dependency management: Eliminates the need to run dep ensure after cloning, merging, and other repository operations.

Cons:

• Larger repository size: The vendor directory can significantly increase the size of the repository.
• Diff conflicts: Modifying Gopkg.lock leads to changes in the vendor directory, which may trigger diff conflicts in pull requests.

Alternative: Running dep ensure Manually

Alternatively, best practice suggests manually running dep ensure after repository checkout. This approach has the following advantages:

• Smaller repository size: The vendor directory is not committed, reducing the repository's overall footprint.
• Cleaner diffs: PR diffs only include changes to the dependency definition in Gopkg.lock, avoiding noise from the vendor directory.

Conclusion

The decision of whether to commit the vendor directory depends on the specific project needs. For reproducible builds and streamlined dependency management, committing the vendor directory is advantageous. However, if repository size and clean diffs are higher priorities, manually running dep ensure after checkout may be a more suitable option.

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