Introduction

Gova is a declarative GUI toolkit for writing native desktop applications in Go. It combines struct-based views, modifier chains, and reactive state into a small, opinionated API built from plain Go primitives: structs and methods, interfaces, generics, and free functions. It is built on top of Fyne but hides the underlying widget toolkit so you write against a smaller, opinionated surface.

What Gova gives you

• Struct components. Declare a view as a struct with typed prop fields; implement one Body method to render.
• Call-site state. State(s, initial) uses the caller's file and line as identity, so you never write string keys.
• Modifier chains. Text("hello").Font(Title).Bold().Padding(SpaceMD) is the canonical way to style. Modifier order is irrelevant.
• Reactive primitives. States, signals, derived values, and stores all update the view automatically when they change.
• Navigation that is not magical. A NavStack owns its stack, UseNav hands you a typed handle to push and pop, and NavLink is the declarative shortcut.
• Headless testing. TestRender renders a component without opening a window, so you can assert on the tree and simulate taps.

What a program looks like

package main
 
import . "github.com/nv404/gova"
 
type Counter struct{}
 
func (Counter) Body(s *Scope) View {
	count := State(s, 0)
 
	return VStack(
		Text(count.Format("count: %d")).Font(Title),
		Button("Increment", func() {
			count.Update(func(n int) int { return n + 1 })
		}),
	).Spacing(SpaceMD).Padding(SpaceLG)
}
 
func main() {
	Run("Counter", Counter{})
}

The rest of the documentation walks through every concept and every exported identifier. Start with Getting started if you are new.

Conventions in these docs

• Code examples import the package as "github.com/nv404/gova" and use names without an alias. Feel free to alias the import in your own code; the framework does not require a specific alias.
• No feature is documented unless it exists in the current codebase.
• Mentions of "the scope" refer to the *gova.Scope value passed to a component's Body method or to a Define closure.