← Work | Open Source · 2022

nihil

Nil-safe types for Go. No more * everywhere.

Role Open Source Author
Daily
Used in production
0
External dependencies
Pre-AI
Built before ChatGPT

Tech Stack

Go

Type

Open Source
Overview

A Go package providing nil-safe types with full database/sql and JSON marshalling support. Built out of frustration with pointer syntax cluttering production code. Used in every Go project I build.

The Challenge

Go's standard approach to nullable database values requires pointer types everywhere — messy, error-prone, and ugly to read. Existing solutions were either too heavy or did not handle JSON marshalling cleanly.

The Solution

Designed a lightweight package with clean nullable types that integrate transparently with database/sql and encoding/json. No reflection magic, no heavy dependencies. Just clean, readable Go.