VibeKickstart

A template project for my personal "vibe coding" when I want to build a website with Go and JS.

view the demo

Features

• Go Backend - Fast HTTP server with WebSocket support
• JavaScript Frontend - Modern ES6 modules (plain JS, no typescript) with esbuild
• Single binary - compiles everything into a single, self-contained binary with no external dependencies

Why a kickstart template?

I found myself starting with the same project scaffolding for multiple projects, a Go backend with frontend assets compiled into a single binary. This kickstart template gives you just that, and not much more. Most of the time I am using Websockets so this includes minimal Websocket support.

Other stuff not included, but I often will add

• For a database, I will typically use sqlite3 with sqlc generated code.
• TailwindCSS
• AlpineJS
• htmx

Projects that started with this template

If you use this and have a project to add, please feel free to send an MR

• stardewar.com
• flyemoji.com

Dependencies

There aren't many dependencies for this project but those that are required are updated automatically with Renovate. Everything here should have latest versions.

Testing

To ensure that nothing is broken for when dependencies are updated, there is a playwrite integration test that is run on every change that ensures that the root page loads and that we can send and receive messages using the backend.

Quick Start

Compile and run local

1. Install mise
2. mise install
3. mise run watch
4. Visit http://localhost:8910

Run with Docker

# Build Docker image
docker build -t vibekickstart .
# Run container
docker run -p 8910:8910 vibekickstart
# Or run in background
docker run -d -p 8910:8910 --name vibekickstart vibekickstart

Demo site

• A button is displayed in the center of the screen
• The button shows a count that increments over time
• When any user clicks the button, it broadcasts a reset to all connected clients
• All clients see the counter reset in real-time

Architecture

Backend (Go)

• HTTP server with embedded static files
• WebSocket connection management with broadcasting
• Template rendering with cache-busting
• Custom pretty-printed logging
• Compiled to single static binary

Frontend (JavaScript)

• ReconnectingWebSocket for automatic websocket reconnection
• ES6 modules bundled with esbuild
• Modern browser targets (Chrome 58+, Firefox 57+, Safari 11+, Edge 16+)
• Assets embedded in Go binary at build time

Deployment

The app can be deployed as a Docker container or as a single binary on a VM.

Development

Vibe Coding

• The entry point is src/main.js for the frontend JS code.
• For the server, routes are defined in app.go.
• If you require assets (images, etc) place them in public/.

Commands

• mise run watch - Watch for changes and rebuild automatically
• mise run run - Build assets and run server once
• mise run build - Build production assets and Go binary
• mise run lint - Run linting and formatting
• mise run test - Run integration tests

License

MIT