Go 1.24, the planned update to Google’s popular open source programming language, has reached the release candidate stage. Expected to arrive in February 2025, the release brings full support for generic type aliases along with the ability to trace executable dependencies using tool directives in Go modules.
The release notes for Go 1.24 note that the release brings full support for generic type aliases, in which a type alias can be parameterized as a defined type. Previously, an alias of type A could refer to a generic type, but a type alias could not have its own parameters. For now, generic type aliases can be disabled in the settings GOEXPERIMENT=noaliastypeparams. This parameter setting will be removed in Go 1.25.
with go in Go 1.24, Go modules can now track executable dependencies using tool directives in go.mod files. This removes the need for the previous solution of adding tools as empty imports to a conventionally named file tools.go. Tea go tool command can now run these tools in addition to the tools that come with the Go distribution. Also with go command, new GOAUTH Environment variables offer a flexible way to validate private module loadings.