Example Go GitLab CI setup (no root/sudo required)

.golang-example-gitlab-ci.yml

# See docs/examples
# http://doc.gitlab.com/ce/ci/quick_start/README.html
# http://doc.gitlab.com/ce/ci/yaml/README.html

# GitLab CI template for Go tests. Note this installs
# a new working copy of Go in a non-standard path such
# that sudo/root is not needed for the install stage.

# note that this particular install-environment stage
# is overly verbose in order to debug anything tricky
# or weird in your environment - feel free to trim it 
# down as needed

stages:
  - install-environment
  - build
  - test

install-go:
  stage: install-environment
  script:
    - export CURRENT_BUILD_PATH=$(pwd)
    - echo $PATH
    - rm -rf $HOME/golang
    - rm -rf $HOME/gopath
    - mkdir -p $HOME/golang # for GOROOT (contains the Go binary & core packages)
    - mkdir -p $HOME/gopath # for GOPATH (contains code and external packages)
    - curl http://storage.googleapis.com/golang/go1.5.2.linux-amd64.tar.gz 2>/dev/null > go1.5.2.linux-amd64.tar.gz
    - tar -C $HOME/golang -xzf go1.5.2.linux-amd64.tar.gz
    - export GOROOT=$HOME/golang/go
    - export GOPATH=$HOME/gopath
    - export PATH=$PATH:$GOROOT/bin
    - export PATH=$PATH:$GOPATH/bin
    - (if [[ "$(go version)" == *"go version go1.5"* ]]; then echo "✓ Go binary installed!"; else echo "Go binary not installed"; exit -1; fi);
    - go version
    - echo $PATH
    - go env
    - which go

build-my-project:
  stage: build
  script:
    - cd $CURRENT_BUILD_PATH
    - go build

test-my-project:
  stage: test
  script:
    - cd $CURRENT_BUILD_PATH
    - go test

This is what I have for using go 1.8 and go dep. Dep requires to have a somewhat valid go path:

image: golang:1.8

stages:
  - test
  - build

before_script:
  - go get -u github.com/golang/dep/cmd/dep 
  - export GOPATH=$(dirname $CI_PROJECT_DIR)/go
  - mkdir -p $GOPATH/src
  - cd $GOPATH/src
  - ln -s $CI_PROJECT_DIR
  - cd $CI_PROJECT_NAME
  - dep ensure -update

test:
  stage: test
  script:
    - go test

build:
  stage: build
  script:
    - go build

If the issue is installing go, I would recommend you to build an image in a different pipeline and push it to a registry and then just use it. Else, it feels like your ci build is getting much more complicated than necessary.

Building on the answer from @pcarranza, I simplified the script a little. The fiddling around with the go path did not work for me. Also dep does not download the vendor directory any longer when the update command is passed in, so I removed this as well:

image: golang:1.10

stages:
  - test
  - build

before_script:
  - go get -u github.com/golang/dep/cmd/dep
  - mkdir -p $GOPATH/src
  - cd $GOPATH/src
  - ln -s $CI_PROJECT_DIR
  - cd $CI_PROJECT_NAME
  - dep ensure

test:
  stage: test
  script:
    - go test

build:
  stage: build
  script:
    - go build

I'm using a similar setup, but I would really love to use caching to save the vendor folder between jobs. Has anybody achieved this? I run multiple jobs in my test stage (test, bench, coverage, etc.) and try to run a cache warmup stage at first.

How to use dep cache for gitlab ci.