Go Backend

You can install packages directly via go install even if there isn't an asdf plugin for them.

The code for this is inside the mise repository at ./src/backend/go.rs.

Dependencies

This relies on having go installed, which you can do via mise:

mise use -g go

TIP

Any method of installing go is fine; mise uses whatever go is on PATH.

Usage

The following installs the latest version of hivemind and sets it as the active version on PATH:

$ mise use -g go:github.com/DarthSim/hivemind
$ hivemind --help
Hivemind version 1.1.0

You can also pin a specific Go module version, including an unreleased pseudo-version:

[tools]
"go:github.com/grafana/oats" = "v0.7.1-0.20260703092802-96201f1b8136"

If you need to resolve an unreleased revision directly from VCS instead of the module proxy, combine the pinned version with install_env:

[tools]
"go:github.com/grafana/oats" = { version = "v0.7.1-0.20260703092802-96201f1b8136", install_env = { GOPROXY = "direct", GONOSUMDB = "github.com/grafana/oats" } }

Tool Options

The following tool-options are available for the go backend—these go in [tools] in mise.toml.

install_env

Set environment variables for the go install command. mise still sets GOBIN to the tool install directory after applying install_env.

[tools]
"go:github.com/DarthSim/hivemind" = { version = "latest", install_env = { GOPRIVATE = "github.com/acme/*" } }

tags

Specify Go build tags (passed as go install -tags):

[tools]
"go:github.com/golang-migrate/migrate/v4/cmd/migrate" = { version = "latest", tags = "postgres" }
# equivalent array form:
# "go:github.com/golang-migrate/migrate/v4/cmd/migrate" = { version = "latest", tags = ["postgres", "mysql"] }