Problem

Go module is located in a private repo. Local Go development setup can’t download said module.

Context

• VCS in use: Gitlab.com
• Public SSH Key is added to Gitlab
• Gitlab password is randomized and stored in password manager — password authentication in terminal is very uncomfortable

Solution

Global (User) Git config

Set git to always use SSH to pull, instead of https:

git config --global url."git@gitlab.com:".insteadOf "https://gitlab.com/"

Do not forget the colon on git@gitlab.com: and the trailing slash on https://gitlab.com/. This is one of the differences between the URL of your git repo between HTTPS and SSH.

Make sure it is set properly in ~/.gitconfig:

# --snip--
[url "git@gitlab.com:"]
        insteadOf = https://gitlab.com/

Go Development Setup

Let Go know that certain URLs are private:

go env -w GOPRIVATE=gitlab.com/your_username

To test:

$ go env | grep GOPRIVATE
GOPRIVATE="gitlab.com/bagong"

Failure to set GOPRIVATE or mismatch in values would be indicated by following error message when trying to fetch Go module:

go: finding gitlab.com/bagong/greetings latest
go: downloading gitlab.com/bagong/greetings v0.0.0-20210226165958-c183cfe6723e
verifying gitlab.com/bagong/greetings@v0.0.0-20210226165958-c183cfe6723e: gitlab.com/bagong/greetings@
v0.0.0-20210226165958-c183cfe6723e: reading https://sum.golang.org/lookup/gitlab.com/bagong/greetings@
v0.0.0-20210226165958-c183cfe6723e: 410 Gone