go-simple-api/lessons/00-INDEX.md

Go Web API Course — Full Index

This course teaches you Go by building a real authentication API: chi router, MySQL, Redis-backed sessions, password login, "Sign in with Google", rate limiting, structured logging, and Docker — from an empty folder to a containerized, production-shaped service.

It assumes zero prior Go knowledge. If you've never written a line of Go before, start with the three "Go Basics" lessons below — everything after that leans on them constantly.

Go Basics (do these first if you're new to Go)

File	Covers
00-go-basics-1-syntax-and-types.md	Installing Go, go run/go build, variables, basic types, if/for/switch, fmt.Println
00-go-basics-2-functions-structs-pointers.md	Functions, multiple return values, structs, methods, pointers (*/&)
00-go-basics-3-interfaces-errors-concurrency-packages.md	Interfaces, error handling, slices & maps, packages & modules, goroutines, JSON basics

The Project Lessons

#	File	Builds
1	lesson-01-project-skeleton-chi-routing.md	Project layout, chi router, graceful shutdown
2	lesson-02-structured-json-logging.md	log/slog JSON logging, request-logging middleware
3	lesson-03-config-and-mysql.md	Env config, MySQL connection pooling
4	lesson-04-user-model-repository-pattern.md	Domain models, the repository pattern
5	lesson-05-password-login-bcrypt.md	bcrypt password hashing, register/login handlers
6	lesson-06-sessions-scs-redis.md	Server-side sessions backed by Redis
7	lesson-07-google-oauth.md	"Sign in with Google" (OAuth2 Authorization Code flow)
8	lesson-08-auth-middleware.md	context.Context, reusable auth-guard middleware
9	lesson-09-rate-limiting-security.md	Rate limiting, CORS, cookie hardening
10	lesson-10-docker-wrapup.md	Docker, docker-compose, full course review

How each lesson is structured

Every project lesson (1–10) has two parts:

• Part A — standalone playground. A tiny, throwaway program that teaches the new concept in isolation, with nothing else going on. You build and run this in its own scratch folder.
• Part B — apply it to the project. The same concept, now wired into the real, growing go-simple-api project, building on the previous lesson's code.

Each lesson also has a "New Go concepts in this lesson" box near the top, pointing back at the specific Go Basics section you should understand first. If something feels unfamiliar, that's the place to go check.

What you'll have by the end

A real, working Go web service with:

• Password-based registration/login (bcrypt-hashed passwords)
• "Sign in with Google" (OAuth2)
• Server-side sessions stored in Redis
• MySQL-backed user storage via a repository pattern
• Structured JSON logging (ready for Grafana Loki / Alloy)
• Rate limiting and basic security hardening
• A Docker Compose setup running the whole stack with one command

Go at your own pace. Each lesson builds directly on the file state left by the previous one — if you get lost, the companion go-simple-api code zip (from earlier) has the final, correct state of every file at the end of the whole course.