How do I create an executable from Golang that doesn't open a console window when run?

The documentation found online says I can compile with something along the lines of,

go build -ldflags -Hwindowsgui filename.go

But this gives an error: unknown flag -Hwindowsgui

With more recent (1.1?) versions of the compiler, this should work:

go build -ldflags -H=windowsgui filename.go

When I continued searching around I found a note that the official documentation should be updated soon, but in the meantime there are a lot of older-style example answers out there that error.

Using Go Version 1.4.2

 go build -ldflags "-H windowsgui" 

From the Go docs:

go build [-o output] [-i] [build flags] [packages]

-ldflags 'flag list' arguments to pass on each 5l, 6l, or 8l linker invocation.

• go build documentation
• ldflags docs

If you don't want to type the long build instructions every time during debugging but still want the console window to disappear, you can add this code at the start of your main function:

package main

import "github.com/gonutz/w32/v2"

func main() {
    console := w32.GetConsoleWindow()
    if console != 0 {
        _, consoleProcID := w32.GetWindowThreadProcessId(console)
        if w32.GetCurrentProcessId() == consoleProcID {
            w32.ShowWindowAsync(console, w32.SW_HIDE)
        }
    }
}

Now you can compile with go build. Your program will show the console window for a short moment on start-up and then immediately hide it.