Getting Started with Go

Alpha Software

The IOTA SDK is currently in alpha. APIs, interfaces, and behavior may change without notice between releases. It is not yet recommended for production use.

The IOTA SDK Go bindings allow you to build high-performance applications that interact with the IOTA network using native Go code. These bindings wrap the core Rust SDK via a Foreign Function Interface (FFI).

Prerequisites

Before using the Go bindings, ensure you have:

• Go: Version 1.21 or higher.
• CGO: Enabled (required for the Rust-to-Go FFI layer).

Installation

Pre-built (Recommended)

Add the IOTA SDK to your Go project using go get:

go get github.com/iotaledger/iota-sdk-go

The package automatically includes pre-built native libraries for most modern operating systems (Windows, macOS, and Linux).

Build from Source

The iota-sdk-go package includes precompiled native libraries for common platforms such as Windows, macOS, and Linux. In most cases, installing the package with:

go get github.com/iotaledger/iota-sdk-go

will download a compatible binary automatically.

However, if a prebuilt binary is not available for your operating system or CPU architecture, you may need to build the SDK from source. In this case, a Rust toolchain is required.

To build the Go bindings locally, clone the SDK repository and build the bindings from the bindings/go directory:

git clone https://github.com/iotaledger/iota-rust-sdk.git
cd iota-rust-sdk/bindings/go
go build ./...

For additional setup instructions and platform-specific details, refer to the Go bindings README in the repository.

Quick Start Example

The following example demonstrates how to connect to the IOTA Testnet and retrieve the Chain ID.

1. Create a main.go file

Create a new file named main.go and paste the following code:

bindings/go/examples/chain_id/main.go

loading...

See full example on GitHub

2. Run the code

In your terminal, run:

go run main.go

What's Next?

Now that you have connected to the network, you can explore more advanced features:

• Accounts and Addresses: create a mnemonic, derive addresses, and check coin balances.
• Transactions: build, sign, and send Programmable Transaction Blocks (PTBs), including staking and reusing command results.
• Queries: query owned objects, events, and transactions with the GraphQL client.

View more comprehensive examples in the official Go examples directory.