With the vim-go plugin, Vim gets all kinds of support for working with a Go project. Generally, with a Go project, you have to run go build to compile the project and if that is successful, you can run go install to put the executable binary on the $GOPATH.

This plugin allows you to tighten the feedback loop. You can build right within your Vim session using

:GoBuild

which will alert you to any compilation errors.

You can then install the program using

:GoInstall

Your program is now ready to run.

It’s worth noting that this plugin will also notify you about syntax errors when you save, if they exist.