Using Delve

You can invoke Delve in multiple ways, depending on your usage needs. Delve makes every attempt to be user-friendly, ensuring the user has to do the least amount of work possible to begin debugging their program.

The available commands can be grouped into the following categories:

• Specify target and start debugging with the default terminal interface:
  • dlv debug [package]
  • dlv test [package]
  • dlv exec <exe>
  • dlv attach <pid>
  • dlv core <exe> <core>
  • dlv replay <rr trace>
• Trace target program execution
  • dlv trace [package] <regexp>
• Start a headless backend server only and connect with an external frontend client:
  • dlv --headless <command> <target> <args>
    • starts a server, enters a debug session for the specified target and waits to accept a client connection over JSON-RPC or DAP
    • <command> can be any of debug, test, exec, attach, core or replay
    • if --headless flag is not specified the default terminal client will be automatically started instead
    • compatible with dlv connect, VS Code Go, GoLand
  • dlv dap
    • starts a DAP-only server and waits for a DAP client connection to specify the target and arguments
    • compatible with VS Code Go
    • NOT compatible with dlv connect, GoLand
  • dlv connect <addr>
    • starts a terminal interface client and connects it to a running headless server over JSON-RPC
• Help information
  • dlv help [command]
  • dlv log
  • dlv backend
  • dlv redirect
  • dlv version

The above list may be incomplete. Refer to the auto-generated complete usage document to further explore all available commands.

Environment variables

Delve also reads the following environment variables:

• $DELVE_EDITOR is used by the edit command (if it isn't set the $EDITOR variable is used instead)
• $DELVE_PAGER is used by commands that emit large output (if it isn't set the $PAGER variable is used instead, if neither is set more is used)
• $TERM is used to decide whether or not ANSI escape codes should be used for colorized output
• $DELVE_DEBUGSERVER_PATH is used to locate the debugserver executable on macOS