Training course · Windsurf · Go

Windsurf for Go Developers

Develop with the Windsurf AI IDE and its Cascade agent: flows, memories, rules, workflows and safe use across the team.

Duration
2 days (14 hrs)
Format
Online or on-site
Language
German or English
Participants
open dates or exclusive for your team
Certificate
Certificate of attendance

Overview

“Windsurf for Go Developers” is a hands-on course for roles such as Go developers in back-end and platform teams, Developers of cloud-native tools, operators and CLIs and Site reliability engineers maintaining their own Go code. Rather than learning Windsurf in the abstract, you work on tasks from your daily routine – with examples, exercises and templates from Go.

Windsurf is an AI-powered development environment built around its agent, Cascade. Cascade understands the structure of your project, follows your actions in the editor and terminal, and works with you according to the flow principle: you and the agent take turns on the same task without having to re-explain context over and over. In this two-day course you will learn how to use Cascade effectively for features, debugging and refactoring, and how to make the most of intelligent completion in your daily development work.

To keep results consistent across a team, you steer Cascade with global and workspace rules, rely on memories for lasting project knowledge and automate recurring procedures with workflows that run from a slash command. You will connect external tools through MCP, control how terminal commands are executed and decide which data Cascade is allowed to see. Finally, you will define rules for code review, security and data protection so that Windsurf can be used responsibly within your organisation and its existing processes.

Go is the language behind many cloud-native tools, microservices, CLIs and infrastructure components. Its strengths are simplicity, fast compilation and built-in concurrency – yet goroutines, channels, context handling and error handling all demand discipline. AI coding assistants and agents suit Go particularly well: the compiler, go vet and the race detector provide fast, unambiguous feedback that agents can iterate on. Typical tasks include table-driven tests, gRPC and HTTP handlers generated from specifications, tracking down race conditions or goroutine leaks and refactoring towards clean interfaces. This course shows you how to get idiomatic Go from AI and how to verify the results with Go’s own tooling.

The course is delivered live – either online in a virtual classroom or on-site in our training rooms in Munich, Salzburg, Berlin, Augsburg, Hanover, Bremen, Stuttgart and Kaiserslautern. We can also run it exclusively for your team.

Who is this course for?

  • Go developers in back-end and platform teams
  • Developers of cloud-native tools, operators and CLIs
  • Site reliability engineers maintaining their own Go code
  • Software architects designing high-performance microservices

Typical challenges we address

  • Subtle concurrency bugs such as race conditions, deadlocks and goroutine leaks
  • Repetitive boilerplate in error handling, handlers and tests
  • Inconsistent project layouts and interface boundaries in growing codebases
  • Difficult performance analysis of memory allocations and latency

What you will be able to do

  • You use Cascade productively in flow for features, debugging and refactoring.
  • You steer Windsurf’s context precisely and keep sensitive content protected.
  • You maintain memories and rules that reliably enforce your project conventions.
  • You automate recurring procedures with workflows and connect external tools via MCP.
  • Have AI agents produce idiomatic Go code, tests and services that follow Go conventions.
  • Use AI deliberately to analyse concurrency and performance problems.
  • Verify generated code with the compiler, go vet, the race detector, linting and benchmarks.

Course outline

Day 1

Module 1 Getting to know Windsurf and Cascade
  • Installation, importing existing editor settings and basic configuration
  • Cascade in code and chat mode: when the agent edits and when it only advises
  • The flow principle: how Cascade takes your editor and terminal actions into account
  • Intelligent completion and inline commands in everyday development
Module 2 Steering context
  • Understanding codebase indexing and referencing relevant files or directories
  • Bringing documentation, web sources and terminal output into context
  • Excluding sensitive content from context with ignore files
  • Structuring sessions and starting afresh when the topic changes
Module 3 Memories and rules for consistent results
  • Reviewing and maintaining auto-generated and manually created memories
  • Creating and versioning global and workspace rules
  • Expressing architecture, style and testing guidelines as effective rules
  • Activating rules selectively by file pattern or occasion
Module 4 Workflows and automation
  • Defining recurring procedures as workflows and launching them via slash command
  • Building workflows for release preparation, testing or code maintenance
  • Connecting MCP servers for issue trackers, databases or internal services
  • Controlling terminal command execution with allow and deny lists

Day 2

Module 5 Quality, review and governance
  • Tracing Cascade’s changes, accepting them partially or reverting them
  • Using a test-driven approach and preview features for verification
  • Team settings, data protection options and handling of secrets
  • Defining review processes and accountability for AI-generated code
Module 6 Practice lab: Go
  • Writing table-driven tests
  • Implementing gRPC and HTTP services
  • Finding concurrency bugs
  • Idiomatic refactoring
  • Profiling performance
  • Building CLIs and tools
Module 7 Data protection, quality & transfer to daily work
  • Go tooling often runs deep in the infrastructure, so keep kubeconfigs, tokens and certificates strictly out of an AI assistant’s context. Check new modules for provenance, licence and known vulnerabilities, for instance with govulncheck, and record dependencies in an SBOM as required under the Cyber Resilience Act for products with digital elements.
  • Ground rules for safe AI use in your team
  • Checking results: facts, sources, tests and the four-eyes principle
  • Personal action plan for the next 30 days
  • Open questions, outlook and resources for further learning

Practical scenarios from your field

Writing table-driven tests

The agent generates idiomatic table-driven tests with subtests, test helpers and fakes for interfaces, runs go test with the race detector and adds missing edge cases until coverage is where you want it.

Implementing gRPC and HTTP services

Protobuf definitions or OpenAPI specs become handlers, middleware for logging and authentication, context propagation with timeouts and clean error returns. Integration tests exercise the endpoints against realistic requests and failure cases.

Finding concurrency bugs

The AI analyses race detector output, goroutine dumps and code using channels or mutexes, explains the cause of deadlocks or leaks and proposes fixes using errgroup or context cancellation.

Idiomatic refactoring

Large packages are untangled, small consumer-side interfaces introduced, errors wrapped and checked with errors.Is, and code aligned with golangci-lint rules. Existing tests keep behaviour safe throughout.

Profiling performance

pprof profiles and benchmark results are interpreted, hotspots and unnecessary allocations identified, and optimisations backed by before-and-after benchmarks. Improvements become measurable rather than merely assumed.

Building CLIs and tools

The assistant creates command-line tools with Cobra or the standard library, including configuration, structured logging, cross-compilation and release automation. Tests, help texts and clear command documentation are included.

Possible hands-on projects

Health check aggregator

A Go service that polls the health endpoints of many services concurrently, merges the results and exposes them as JSON and Prometheus metrics.

Log shipper CLI

A lean command-line tool that tails log files, filters entries and ships them in batches to an HTTP endpoint – with backoff and graceful shutdown.

Kubernetes resource report

A CLI built on client-go that reads resource requests and limits across all deployments and presents anomalies in a clear table.

Prerequisites

You program regularly in at least one language and are familiar with Git and a modern IDE. Hands-on Go experience including goroutines, interfaces and modules, plus a working knowledge of Git and containers.

Technical requirements

Your own laptop with the Windsurf editor, Git and your usual toolchain installed; a Windsurf account with access to Cascade is required.

Data protection & compliance

Go tooling often runs deep in the infrastructure, so keep kubeconfigs, tokens and certificates strictly out of an AI assistant’s context. Check new modules for provenance, licence and known vulnerabilities, for instance with govulncheck, and record dependencies in an SBOM as required under the Cyber Resilience Act for products with digital elements.

Suggested dates

All dates are suggestions – your preferred date is always possible.

  • Thu, 26 November 2026 – Fri, 27 November 2026 Online Request
  • Mon, 7 December 2026 – Tue, 8 December 2026 Stuttgart Request
  • Wed, 20 January 2027 – Thu, 21 January 2027 Online Request
  • Tue, 26 January 2027 – Wed, 27 January 2027 Berlin Request
  • Tue, 9 February 2027 – Wed, 10 February 2027 Online Request
  • Tue, 16 February 2027 – Wed, 17 February 2027 Munich Request

Frequently asked questions

What does Windsurf mean by flows?

Flows describe the close collaboration between you and Cascade. The agent observes what you do in the editor and terminal and takes those actions into account in its next steps. As a result you do not have to keep explaining where you are, and you can move smoothly between doing the work yourself and delegating it to the agent.

How do memories, rules and workflows differ?

Memories store knowledge that Cascade has gathered while working or that you have explicitly recorded. Rules are guidelines you write that shape the agent’s behaviour permanently. Workflows are reusable sequences of steps for recurring tasks, launched with a slash command. Together they keep results consistent across the whole team.

Can I use Windsurf with my existing projects and languages?

Yes. Windsurf is language-agnostic and works with your existing toolchain, including build tools, package managers and test frameworks. Whether you work on back end, front end, data processing or infrastructure code, what matters is giving Cascade good rules and clear context. Each course variant adds the specific focus for your field.

Does AI really write idiomatic Go?

With good context, yes. Without guidance, models sometimes drift towards patterns from other languages, such as large interfaces or excessive abstraction. On the course you capture your Go conventions, linter configuration and example code so the assistant favours simple, idiomatic solutions, and you verify the output with golangci-lint.

Can AI reliably detect race conditions?

AI is a powerful analysis aid but no substitute for the race detector. The combination works best: the agent runs tests with the race detector, interprets the reports and proposes fixes. You learn to set up that loop and to critically assess any suggested synchronisation changes before accepting them.

How much does “Windsurf for Go Developers” cost?

The course costs a flat €949 plus VAT per participant – whether online or on-site. This includes 2 training day(s) with a live trainer, course materials, a lab environment and a certificate of attendance.

Can I suggest my own date?

Yes. Our suggested dates are just a guide. In the request form you can always describe your preferred date or period in free text – we check availability and confirm within one working day.

Is the course online or on-site?

Both are possible: live online in a virtual classroom or on-site in Munich, Salzburg, Berlin, Augsburg, Hanover, Bremen, Stuttgart or Kaiserslautern. We can also run the course exclusively for your team.

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