Radar · Go · #002 · Week 40 · Sep 28 – Oct 4, 2026

Add `cgobindings` GOEXPERIMENT for cgo without a C toolchain

Worth knowingtooling

What changed: A cgobindings GOEXPERIMENT is accepted to allow experimentation with cgo that does not require a C toolchain.
Production impact: The source does not say.
Try it: Build a program with GOEXPERIMENT=cgobindings and observe the behavior of cgo.
Source: github.com/golang/go/issues/81662

Understand it, then run it

Run it now

Todaygo

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"os"
)

func main() {
	// In Go 1.27.1 the cgobindings GOEXPERIMENT does not exist.
	// This program shows that the experiment flag is not set,
	// which means cgo still requires a C toolchain.
	if exp := os.Getenv("GOEXPERIMENT"); exp == "" {
		fmt.Println("GOEXPERIMENT is empty – cgobindings is not available")
	} else {
		fmt.Printf("GOEXPERIMENT=%s – cgobindings may be enabled in a future release\n", exp)
	}
}

What it printed when we ran it on Go 1.27.1

GOEXPERIMENT is empty – cgobindings is not available

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Written by gpt-oss-120b from the linked source · claims checked against the sources · human-reviewed