Building Windows Services with Go: A Starting Point

A Generic Go Windows Service Template

I’m pleased to share go-windows-service.

What is go-windows-service?

The go-windows-service project is a template implementation that demonstrates how to create a proper Windows service using Go’s golang.org/x/sys/windows/svc package. Rather than being a feature-complete application, it’s designed as a reference implementation that you can clone, customize, and extend for your specific needs.

Why Use This Template?

Creating Windows services in Go can be tricky if you’re not familiar with the Windows service architecture. And let’s be honest, the Windows service API documentation sometimes feels like it was written during the Windows NT era and nobody bothered to update it since. This template handles all the boilerplate code for you - service control handlers, proper signal handling, event log integration, and all that fun stuff.

Instead of spending three days figuring out why your service won’t start (spoiler: it’s always the event log permissions), you can focus on implementing your actual business logic.