Go Rest API Server

A lightweight helper package for building HTTP/HTTPS services with Gin. It provides sensible defaults, production‑friendly middleware, convenient response helpers, and support for listening on multiple interfaces and/or ports. It preserves backward compatibility with legacy single‑address APIs.

• Multi‑address listeners for HTTP and HTTPS
• Optional self‑signed TLS certificate generation for development
• Minimal, composable middlewares: CORS, structured request logging, no‑cache headers
• Small convenience helpers for consistent JSON responses
• Tested, linted, and vulnerability‑checked in CI

Installation

Requirements: Go 1.25.3 or newer.

go get github.com/dan-sherwin/[email protected]

Quick Start

Single address (HTTP)

package main

import (
    "log"
    restapi "github.com/dan-sherwin/go-rest-api-server"
)

func main() {
    restapi.ListeningAddress = "0.0.0.0:5555"
    restapi.StartHttpServer()
    defer func() {
        if err := restapi.ShutdownHttpServer(); err != nil {
            log.Fatal(err)
        }
    }()

    select {} // serve forever
}

Multiple addresses (HTTP)

restapi.ListeningAddresses = []string{"0.0.0.0:8080", "127.0.0.1:9090"}
restapi.StartHttpServer()

HTTPS with self‑signed certificates (development)

// Start HTTPS on multiple addresses and auto‑generate a self‑signed cert/key.
restapi.HTTPSListeningAddresses = []string{"0.0.0.0:8443", "127.0.0.1:9443"}
restapi.StartHttpsServer("", "", true)
// Optionally ensure cleanup if your app may exit without calling Shutdown.
defer restapi.CleanupGeneratedTLSFiles()

API Overview

The package exposes a small set of globals and functions. Legacy names are preserved intentionally for backward compatibility.

• Configuration
  • ListeningAddress string — default "0.0.0.0:5555"
  • HTTPSListeningAddress string — default "0.0.0.0:5556"
  • ListeningAddresses []string — if non‑empty, takes precedence over ListeningAddress
  • HTTPSListeningAddresses []string — if non‑empty, takes precedence over HTTPSListeningAddress
• Server lifecycle
  • StartHttpServer() — start one or more HTTP servers
  • StartHttpsServer(certFile, keyFile string, autoSelfSigned bool) — start one or more HTTPS servers; when autoSelfSigned is true and cert/key are empty or missing, a dev self‑signed pair is generated and reused for all listeners
  • ShutdownHttpServer() error — graceful shutdown of all HTTP servers
  • ShutdownHttpsServer() error — graceful shutdown of all HTTPS servers and cleanup of any auto‑generated TLS files
  • CleanupGeneratedTLSFiles() — force cleanup of any auto‑generated TLS artifacts
• Routing and utilities
  • RegisterRouters(funcs ...func(r *gin.Engine)) — add routes to the underlying Gin engine
  • DisablePing() — disables the default /ping route
  • ClientIP(c *gin.Context) string — returns X-Forwarded-For if present, otherwise c.ClientIP()

Middleware

In github.com/dan-sherwin/go-rest-api-server/middlewares:

• CORSMiddleware() — permissive CORS headers with preflight handling
• RequestLogger() — structured request logging (method, path, status, content length, referrer, UA, and body for non‑GET requests)
• NoCache() — sets headers to prevent client/proxy caching

Use with your own Gin engine, or simply rely on the engine created by this package.

Response Helpers

In github.com/dan-sherwin/go-rest-api-server/restresponse:

• RestSuccess(c *gin.Context, data any) — 200 JSON response
• RestSuccessNoContent(c *gin.Context) — 204 response
• Error helpers (map to sensible HTTP statuses):
  • RestErrorRespond(c, code, message, details...)
  • RestUnknownErrorRespond
  • RestBadRequestRespond
  • RestUnsupportedMediaTypeRespond
  • RestNotAcceptableRespond
  • RestPayloadTooLargeRespond
  • RestTooManyRequestsRespond
  • RestUnprocessableContentRespond

Status mapping is implemented via restresponse.HTTPStatusFromCode and restresponse.Code values.

Development

• Run tests

  go test ./... -v
  

• Lint

  golangci-lint run --timeout 5m
  

• Security

  govulncheck ./...
  

Versioning & Changelog

This project follows Semantic Versioning. See CHANGELOG.md for release notes.

License

This project is licensed under the terms of the license found in the LICENSE file.