---
title: Honeybadger for Go (golang) v0.0.3 released
published: "2016-04-25"
publisher: Honeybadger
author: Joshua Wood
category: Company updates
tags:
  - Go
  - Honeybadger
description: "Last week we released some improvements to our Go client, which reports panics and errors from Go applications. You can now configure the client to ignore errors in development/test mode."
url: "https://www.honeybadger.io/blog/honeybadger-golang-v0-0-3/"
---

Last week we released some improvements to our Go client, which reports panics and errors from Go applications. [Check out the package on GitHub](https://github.com/honeybadger-io/honeybadger-go), and read on to learn about the update!

## Development mode

Adding a test/development mode is something we've been wanting to do since we first released Honeybadger for Go, and now it's possible by using the `NewNullBackend()` method.

In the honeybadger package a backend is an interface which responds to the method `Notify()`:

```go
// The Backend interface is implemented by the server type by default, but a // custom implementation may be configured by the user. type Backend interface { Notify(feature Feature, payload Payload) error }
```

The backend Honeybadger uses to report data can be configured using the `honeybadger.Configure()` method. Making the backend configurable allows the user to decide how the data should be handled after our package collects it; the default backend is the [server backend](https://github.com/honeybadger-io/honeybadger-go/blob/master/server.go), which [sends the data to Honeybadger servers via HTTP](https://docs.honeybadger.io/api/reporting-exceptions/).

`NewNullBackend()` creates a backend which swallows all errors and does not send them to Honeybadger. This is useful for development and testing to disable sending unnecessary errors. To stop reporting live data, just configure the `backend` option to use the null backend:

```go
honeybadger.Configure(honeybadger.Configuration{Backend: honeybadger.NewNullBackend()})
```

## Updated CI build

Now that [Go 1.6 is out](https://blog.golang.org/go1.6), we updated our [TravisCI build matrix](https://github.com/honeybadger-io/honeybadger-go/blob/master/.travis.yml) to test 1.4-1.6 so that we can be sure that we support the latest versions of Go and do not create regressions.

## Bugfixes

One of the packages we depend on, [shirou/gopsutil](https://github.com/shirou/gopsutil) released a breaking change to their API which forced us to update our usage. Be sure to update both honeybadger and gopsutil to the latest versions when you upgrade (and always vendor your dependencies!)

We also fixed an issue with an unexported field name on the `Fingerprint` type, which was added in v0.0.2.

## Thanks to our contributors

This release was made possible by our awesome customers. Thank you to [Chris Gaffney](https://github.com/gaffneyc), [Stephen Meriwether](https://github.com/smeriwether) and [Kostiantyn Stepaniuk](https://github.com/kostyantyn) for your contributions. Let me know if you ever visit Portland, OR so that I can buy you a beer. :beers: :)

* * *

For a full history of the changes we make to the honeybadger package for Go, check out the [CHANGELOG](https://github.com/honeybadger-io/honeybadger-go/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md).

I hope that these improvements will help you exterminate errors and panics in your Go applications faster. If you haven't tried Honeybadger for Go yet, [sign up for a free trial](https://www.honeybadger.io/for/go)!

---

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